Two Knight's Closing
Title: Two Knight's Closing: Landing in London
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate/Eliot, refferenced pre-series Eliot/OMC, later Parker/Hardison
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: Those who forget the past will be doomed to repeat it.
Notes: Well hello, here's the begining of the end of Two Knight's Closing. I have the first half or so written and hope to be able to keep posting a chapter a week. This may be interupted by RL drama but with a little luck that won't get in the way of important stuff (ficcing).
Thanks and much praise goes out to LMX_3point3 for the betaing!
Last but not least most/all of these chapters were written to songs. Not songfics so much as the songs would sort of help set the tone in my head and give some ideas of how to *start* to arrange a bunch of jumbled plotlines and scenes in a semi-followable way. I like to think of it as an accidental sound-track. Anyway, if anyone's interested I'll be posting links to the songs used.
Landing in London
Los Angeles
15 years ago
They were ghosts, shadows, black smudges in the ugly yellow glow of an old light fixture just barely illuminating the back doorway to the run-down apartment building behind them.
But they were, for this moment at least, smudges together. Two ghosts in an island of light in a dark alley on a long January night, lingering for one last moment.
One last touch on the shoulder in place of the kiss and farewell they would have liked to give one another, if not for the ever watchful eyes and loose tongues. Rumors could have them dead by morning should anyone ever add any of those forbidden words to their names.
One last smirking joke and bark of laughter.
One last reminder of a birthday in just two days.
One last teasing comment about being old enough to drink at last.
One last look.
One last silent promise.
Then one turned, letting himself into the building and the other lingered a moment longer in that ugly yellow glow, waiting to see the light in the apartment above him come on, before he turned away and faded back into the shadows.
He still had work to do.
For the rest of his life he’d regret assuming the light had meant all was well.
London, England
Present Day
Eliot came awake with a jerk.
Or at least he was awakened by a jerk.
The plane beneath him bounced and jolted, the look of the weather outside the window next to him told him he should be glad he could see the flight quickly descending toward Heathrow Airport in London.
He took a moment to breathe, force himself to calmly check around himself to make sure the other passengers didn’t look panicked and they weren’t descending *too* quickly toward the runway below.
It was only after he’d ascertained that the flight was just rough and not looking to kill him and the other passengers of trans Atlantic flight 824 (and he really needed to stop committing that kind of information to his brain when he was taking what, for him, amounted to a vacation) he settled back into his seat and commenced berating himself just a little.
Yes, he was technically on vacation.
Mental health holiday? Medical leave of absence?
Whatever.
Yes, he wasn’t technically on a job of any sort, and yes he should probably get as much sleep as he could now, considering in about two days he doubted he’d be able to get any sleep. Lord knows he was already having even more trouble than usual…
But that was no reason at all for him to get sloppy and sleep in a fucking public place.
Even if he knew he would have woken up if the stewardess so much as looked at him too long and if one of his enemies somehow managed to work through five levels of aliases, two separate hacks by Hardison and a last minute exchange of ticket to go to London instead of Madagascar then Eliot was probably screwed in the long run anyway.
Still. He was Eliot fucking Spencer.
He should know better.
The plane landed and Eliot let himself get lost in the motions of getting his shit together, getting his bag, getting off. All the lovely 'gettings' of travel. God knew he’d spent the whole week he took off last year traveling, just so he could get lost in those 'gettings' and not think about why he was taking the week off in the first place.
Why he always took the same week off, no matter what he was doing or where he was.
Of course, his getting was extended when he had to get himself some place to stay for at least this night. He didn’t have reservations. He’d changed flights at the last possible moment, not even sure why he decided he really needed to come to London of all places.
He just really needed to be here.
He rented a car and eventually found a little bed and breakfast place in a quieter part of the city, family run and a little homey. He’d leave and find a roach motel, or London's equivalent, in a couple of days. He liked the old couple who ran this place but they seemed like they’d take concern to strange noises coming from his room and didn’t want them caught in the middle of this week.
He booked the room for two days, paid in cash, and barely stashed his stuff away before leaving. He set out at a jog, figuring he’d run until his head cleared and then find a bar and a woman looking for no talk of tomorrow.
Yeah.
That had been the plan.
The plan hadn’t involved it starting to rain hard, even if he ignored it.
The plan hadn’t been finding himself in a place he was pretending he didn’t recognize, outside a building of apartments and condos he knew from photographs, trying to catch his breath and sooth nerves that wouldn’t let him stop twitching.
The plan hadn’t involved two flashbacks while out on the run just from seeing a man out with his kid or from a whiff of a smell he could almost, but not quite, recognize.
The plan unfortunately didn’t account for the fact it would be Valentine's day in less than a week and the UK was on the short list of places that celebrated the day he normally traveled to third world countries to avoid.
Still, he found himself walking the same crowded streets Nate had no more than a couple months ago, rain soaked hair clinging to his face and neck, the chill of the settling night seeping into his bones.
Eliot half wondered if Hardison was tracking him on traffic cams like he had Nate. He really hoped not. He’d been jogging for what felt like (and might actually have been) hours. He normally wouldn’t even be winded. He’d trained his body enough over the years that he could run at a light jog for… well not forever but a long, long time.
But he was out of breath. He was on edge. He was trying desperately to get a handle over himself.
He did not want them to witness him like this.
Hell. He didn’t want anyone to witness him like this.
That plan was forever and completely destroyed when he heard a voice call out to him. “Eliot?”
He looked up in time to see Sophie emerge from the throng and come over to him. “What are you doing here?” she asked, concern on her voice.
He licked his lips and tried to form some kind of answer that didn’t sound Parker crazy, or pathetic.
Or some variation on “I don’t know.”
He didn’t have to say it. A hint of understanding crossed Sophie’s face. “It’s February eighth,” she stated simply. She didn’t understand. Not completely. She was a good grifter but Eliot knew there was no way she could know or guess anything past something bad was happening, or had happened. Maybe judging from his disappearance around this time last year she could guess it was some kind of anniversary. His attitude had to tell her it was a bad one.
But she couldn’t know. She just couldn’t.
“Come inside. Have some tea. You look half frozen,” she insisted, accepting he was here like him jogging over to her place was normal. Like he hadn’t just flown across an ocean for reasons he wasn’t entirely sure about.
Her hand was warm when it settled briefly on his shoulder before she gently led him toward the door and up the stairs to her condo.
A half hour later he was sitting on her couch with a warm blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a mug of his favorite tea in his hands, shoulder to shoulder with Sophie watching a soccer game on her Tv, no questions asked.
He took a long drink, letting himself thaw out physically and maybe elsewise, and chanced a glance out the window.
The rain appeared to be letting up.
For the moment at least.
Boston, MA
There were some days when Nate wished he’d stayed sober, when he thought through the process of getting sober again and seriously almost considered it worth it.
And then there were days when he couldn’t wait until he was alone enough to drink himself into oblivion.
Today was the later.
Right now, though, his plan to drink himself into oblivion was being somewhat hindered by the difficulty he was having getting Hardison and Parker out the door.
Okay, so he was actually delaying them a little himself. Eliot was taking two weeks off, Nate wasn’t going to think about why, and Hardison had finally (finally) gotten his act together and had tried to persuade Parker to take advantage of this with him by going to Tokyo for a week.
Nate wondered if she really didn’t realize it was a date or if she was just playing up to what they’d come to expect from Parker. Some days Nate really thought she understood a lot more than she let on.
Parker had eventually agreed to doing the tourist thing for five days in New York city, so long as they stole at least one thing worth at least five hundred dollars every day. She’d been wanting to practice her “Snatching” abilities (by which Nate thought she meant her ability to pull off a heist with no prep time, but he didn’t want to know for certain).
Nate had ended up being pulled into the last minute preparations before the two set out for the air port. Hardison spent an entire hour giving him the run down of the latest updates to the “castle” (as Hardison was calling their building lately) security systems, how everyone’s “Out of state” panic buttons worked, and a reminder of how to work Hardison’s systems should Nate want to do research.
Then, of course, Parker had arrived and Nate ended up pulling her aside and giving her the list of pre-job reminders the team as a whole had been compiling over the past few years (ranging from how silverware is not weaponry, to the rule that pick pocketing cops is a bad idea no matter how fun it is).
Parker left to grab what she called "her other repelling gear”. Nate had a feeling he really did not want to know what she meant by that and to distract himself Nate reminded Hardison that Eliot would break his legs and Nate would let him, should Hardison in any way hurt Parker.
While Hardison was having a minor freak out of denial Nate took the opportunity to slip a folded piece of paper into Hardison’s bag.
Later Hardison would discover the list of those living in New York city who Nate knew to have had corrupt dealings at one point or another.
Just a little extra moral protection for when Parker got the itch.
Parker returned with, of all things, a purse and they grabbed their suitcases and finally, finally, got out the door.
Nate drifted through the apartment, straightening this and that left out of place by the flurry of activity that had set in. He considered spending the night here, hopefully warding off loneliness by avoiding the apartment he normally shared with Eliot. He was trying not to think of the younger man but it was hard, the more he realized how long it had been since they’d spent more than a day or two away from each other.
The week ahead kept getting longer and longer.
It was ironic, really, and somewhat pathetic that he kept thinking about how it would be Valentine’s Day in a week and that this was the second time in a row he’d be spending it alone despite being in a steady relationship. Of course, considering…
It was likely he’d spend the rest of them alone.
He took a drink of the coffee sitting in the mug on the counter, nearly pulling a spit take over the ice cold coffee orange soda mix that Parker had started to drink recently.
He could almost hear Eliot saying “there’s something wrong with her.”
With a sigh Nate dumped the noxious concoction in the sink and went for more coffee, surprised to find the pot empty. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
He was going through the strangely unfamiliar motions of making coffee before he realized it had been months since he’d made himself coffee. The pot was always there, always enough for at least one last cup, freshly brewed at the usual times he went for coffee and he’d just never questioned it but…
He realized Eliot working in the kitchen was such a familiar sight that all the times he’d seen Eliot making coffee had never registered. It was Eliot being Eliot and the fact Eliot only drank tea had never quite processed all the way.
Nate stared at the package of filters in his hands like he didn’t know what they were and tried not to process why that realization made him want to drink.
Eliot was a master of doing little things for people without being noticed.
When was the last time he’d done something little for Eliot?
He left the coffee half-made and turned for the first alcohol he could put his hands on.
He was about to open the beer when it registered it wasn’t Eliot’s favorite kind. While in their old place Eliot had kept a full stock of his favorite kinds of beer Eliot had never brought alcohol into Nate’s apartment or the one they shared, even on the rare occasions he did the grocery shopping.
Even after Nate had started to drink again.
He had five days before any of the others showed up to knock on his door again.
He had this sudden, half impulsive urge to just not drink, go through the withdrawl, send Hardison and Parker home when they came by, and be sober when Eliot got home from wherever he was.
Maybe he’d be able to convince Sophie to come back if he was sober.
He’d opened the beer before he realized it, the dream died as he habitually took a sip.
Later he’d wish, in private, that it had been Eliot that had been the turning point, not his own need for control. Not the fact that things were getting so out of control already that even as he considered getting back on the wagon he all but couldn’t help taking a long drink.
Thinking of Eliot coming home worn out, down, rubbed raw by the thing that had made him ask for time off, only to slowly realize there were no signs Nate had been drinking in the past two weeks, noticing the signs that Nate had gone through withdrawl, his face lighting up the way Nate wished it did more, when Eliot realized Nate was back on the wagon…
Instead of that, the drink burned down his throat and he saw himself sitting at the kitchen counter, watching the door, drinking until he’s drunk, waiting for Eliot to get home. Eliot walking in the door, worn out, rubbed raw, confronted with Nate drunk and just turning around and leaving. Walking away like Sophie.
He saw the rest of them walking away.
He dumped the beer in the sink before he let his body process what he was doing.
He busied his hands making something, making tea. Taking a small note of comfort from the fact he knew how to make Eliot’s favorite tea off the top of his head, not letting himself think of anything else besides that.
When the tea is done he took the mug and left the apartment, going up to Eliot’s studio, sitting on the wide bench on the back wall under a window that had good, very good, memories of the times he’d watch Eliot’s late night training and “help” him work on “endurance”.
He sat and drank his tea and thought of Eliot.
He knew in the morning he’d probably give in to habit and have a drink or twelve.
But for the moment he’d drink Eliot’s tea and tell himself he was going to take back control of one thing in his life.
Los Angeles
19 years ago
She had been watching them for a while now. It was hard to be sure and she had to be sure.
One wrong move and Samuel was likely to go so far underground that all of her sisters together couldn’t have sniffed him out.
So she watched them, like a ghost, like the ghosts they were.
She had tracked down most of the unit by now. They were street kids, the oldest she’d found didn’t look like he could be older than twenty and god only knew life on the street made you age faster than you should. Maybe that was why she was still doing this instead of just doing what she did best and leaving.
Well that and the fact she had to be realistic. She doubted it would be the easiest job, to do what she’d originally come to do when she heard Samuel was in LA.
She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but knowing who these kids were… From all reports she had found the project had been going on for at least two years. And from what she had heard there had been a lot more than the thirteen students now remaining when the project had started.
It looked like they’d been having more success here than they’d ever had on the east coast. She needed someone on the inside, but after two years these kids were probably about as close to brainwashed as they could get.
Still these two, the oldest and another… there was something different about them. If she could just get them to open their eyes and fight back they would be able to get to the others and maybe this time they could take down Samuel for good.
If she was wrong though…
She just couldn’t be wrong. Simple as that.
With long practiced ease she made her way down the fire escape to the alley below where the two boys lingered on the back stoop of an apartment building.
She gave a hand sign that told them that she knew much more about them then they’d probably ever thought a woman like her would know.
“Hello.” They returned her greeting by standing, falling into complementary defensive stances. A part of her mind registered that they’d been trained to fight as a pair as well as by themselves. The closeness between them was more obvious in their stance than anything she’d seen yet. “I’m not here for a fight.”
The older one narrowed his eyes, not even twitching when a sudden sharp breeze blew strands of his long hair into his face. “Then what are you here for?”
She met each sets of angry blue eyes steadily in turn as she spoke. “I need to talk to you boys about Samuel.” Neither boy’s face betrayed them, though there was just a hint of shock in the younger boy’s eyes. “I want to help get you out.”
Present Day
“This is him,” Tara said, looking down at the body on a slab in a morgue in LA. His eyes were closed but she could almost imagine those same blue eyes she’d seen in that alley years ago standing so fierce and solid next to Echo. They’d kept in touch even after everything that had happened. Even after Echo disappeared and they all left LA. A friendship forged by hellfire and a mutual desire for revenge against a shared enemy. Neither of them had been saints, or become them. Though Charlie had made nine kinds of fun of her when he found out what she was up to as a favor to Sophie. He still gave her no small amount of grief about how she didn’t seem able to help herself when it came down to it.
Bleeding-heart Tara. Once, only two people on earth could get away with calling her that.
And now they were both dead, even if one was more official in that death than the other.
Some part of her still wondered if she’d one day be the one to identify Echo’s body.
No. Not anymore. Echo was long dead. She doubted she would even have recognized him if n-
“Full name?” the coroner asked.
“Charlie November India,” she stated coldly.
The coroner stopped halfway through writing it and asked, “His parents military?”
“Something like that,” Tara answered. She mentally apologized for not being able to give the coroner his real name, but that was Charlie’s own fault for never telling her. “How did he die?” she asked, though the bullet hole in his forehead told her execution style it never hurt to ask.
Besides, this was Charlie. The only way you could shoot Charlie at point blank range was if you had him chained up to the point he couldn’t even twitch.
Or if you were Samuel, a small almost scared part of her mind whispered.
“At first I thought it was the GSW to the head. Rather effective. But then upon the Bureau’s instance I looked closer. Suicide by cyanide. He had a capsule hidden in a false back molar, very cold war era- esq. There was also some tissue damage to the gums that made me consider the possibility that someone forced the capsule to break but… no. Further examination revealed that it was highly unlikely. Obviously someone took the time to clean him up and make it look like a kill. Very odd.”
She’d been afraid of that.
“Well thank you for calling this in when you found the contact number on his body. I’ll remind you again this man was a sleeper agent and we’re trusting you to keep this quiet in the interest of national security. You’ve been very helpful.” God, she was starting to sound like Hardison. Maybe this break the team was on would be good for her. “If anything else comes up please contact me personally at this number.”
“It was my pleasure Agent Sinclair.” He took her card and turned to put it away. By the time he turned back she was long gone from the morgue.
An hour later she found herself on the rooftop she’d watched Charlie and Echo from, before she had even known their names. Where she’d watched over two boys and considered an action that would change the course of all three of their lives.
Charlie was dead.
She wouldn’t cry for him. It wasn’t her style even if he was one of those people to her.
It seemed almost unfair. They’d both cried when Echo disappeared, if only a handful of tears that didn’t even beginning to wash away the blood they’d found, covering the warehouse floor after they’d heard the news. His body hadn’t been among those found but… it was hard to tell themselves there was any chance he wasn’t dead. They’d been younger then and the world had been colder and they’d been crying as much for themselves as the one they’d lost.
She wouldn’t cry for Charlie and it was only fair.
After all when she died there would be no one left to cry for her.
But she would get him revenge, and finish what he’d started. What she’d started.
What the three of them had started.
Weeks ago he’d passed through Boston to see her, hell it was how she’d discovered he knew Eliot (And she’d have to figure out how to contact Eliot and tell him that Charlie was dead and she didn’t want to think about that). He’d told her he’d heard disturbing rumors and thought that maybe Samuel had finally come out of hiding only he didn’t like what he was hearing about the reasons why. He was afraid that maybe things were starting again.
She’d told him to be careful. To remember that Samuel would always have a huge advantage over him. That it was stupid and he should just fucking wait for her to finish paying Sophie back the favor and then they could check it out together. A few weeks or months wouldn’t make that much of a difference.
But he’d gone ahead, alone, and had ended up dead.
Tara didn’t know what he’d found, but there was only one reason Charlie would kill himself.
Samuel.
She had to move fast. She didn’t know what Samuel knew or if this was going to send him underground again.
She needed help.
A thought came to mind and she winced.
So much for being even with Sophie after this stint with the Leverage crew.
But at least she’d be even with Charlie.
She pulled out her phone and dialed Sophie.
London, England
Sophie watched Eliot out of the corner of her eye as he got more and more involved with the game on TV. It had been mostly on accident, out of habit really, that she’d made sure to get a sports channel package, but now she was more than glad she had.
She didn’t know what was going on with Eliot, though she had her theories, none of which she liked.
The Eliot and Nate thing had been a huge piece of why she left. But she had missed Eliot on more levels than she’d admit to. For reasons she couldn’t quite let herself process, she felt safer when he was around. And warmer. Some days it felt like he was the team’s sun warming and giving them nurturance so steadily you don’t even notice he’s there until he’s not anymore.
She wondered if she could convince him to cook her dinner.
He probably didn’t need convincing, just permission to use her kitchen.
She was starting to get into the game herself when her cell phone rang. Gesturing to Eliot to just keep watching and ignore her she took the phone into the kitchen.
She was surprised to find it was Tara on the line. “Tara?”
“Yeah,” Tara confirmed. “Listen I know I said I’d keep an eye on things but something happened outside the team.” A pause before Tara stated, her voice forcibly neutral, “Charlie’s dead.” Sophie felt her stomach drop a little. She didn’t know Charlie personally but in the months she and Tara ran together when they first met she knew Tara had found a payphone at least once a week to call this mysterious Charlie and let him know she was still alive and tell him about her latest exploits. They were about as close as you could get to anyone in their line of work. “I don’t know what happened but it doesn’t look good.”
Absently Sophie heard the game in the other room mute but she shook it off. “Take the time you need,” Sophie told Tara. “The team’s not going to be doing anything for another week at least. Though if it’s not too personal maybe see if you can get Nate to help you. It never hurts to have IYS’ best investigator on your side.” She didn’t verbally add that with Nate drinking again leaving him alone for a week was not the best idea.
“Help with what?” Eliot asked, he’d come to stand in the doorway.
“Is Eliot there?” Tara asked on the other end of the line, obviously confused.
Sophie mentally rolled her eyes. She hated having conversations in person and on the phone at the same time. It was times like this that she thought they should just all wear their comms all the time. She covered the phone’s receiver and told Eliot, “A friend of Tara’s died.” Before putting the phone back to her ear. “Yes, he’s here, he’s passing through London and stopped in for a visit.”
“Oh.” Tara said sounding like she didn’t know what to make of it. “Could you give him a message from me?”
“Of course. Though you could tell him yourself,” Sophie supplied, mentally wondering when she became the team’s messenger service and handed the phone over to Eliot.
“Tara?” he asked, confusion plainly on his face. Sophie couldn’t hear what Tara said but she could see shock followed by disbelief cross Eliot’s face. “Dead? Charlie? How... how did you know I kn… I’ll be there soon as I can…” Anger, a familiar and oddly comforting emotion replaced the others. “Fuck no. I don’t care. I ain't staying here while this shit goes down. I don’t care, Tara. Tara?” More anger as he looked at the phone.
Sophie wasn’t surprised that Tara had just hung up on him. It was Tara after all.
Eliot was already turning to go. He paused long enough to take a breath and thank her for the hospitality but he had to go.
She watched him, the tense lines and gritted teeth and all the signs of everything he’d been carrying when he turned up on her doorstep and everything pushing, bending, and threatening to break him all those times since the team first came together. The anger and pain blended into a white hot fire ready to burn down anything in his path.
Instinct told her to get out of the way, that this was Eliot in his determined mode and that she should just let him go like she always did. Like they always did. Just like in Kentucky and Nebraska and everything else.
In the end you just had to let him go.
But he had turned up this afternoon at her place soaking wet and chilled and looking lost. In Kentucky he’d come back alive when they let him go but hurting worse for the venture. In Nebraska, hell everywhere, in the end they let him go and get hurt and maybe they couldn’t do anything but they never really seemed to try. Eliot was Eliot. He always came back, you just had to let her go off alone sometimes.
Him. You had to let him go off alone.
He was half the reason she had left.
But a part of the other half was to see if anyone would care enough to chase after her, to tell her they needed her to come back.
She was still waiting for that but…
She hurried after him, placing a hand on his shoulder to stop him before he walked out the door.
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate/Eliot, refferenced pre-series Eliot/OMC, later Parker/Hardison
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: Those who forget the past will be doomed to repeat it.
Notes: Well hello, here's the begining of the end of Two Knight's Closing. I have the first half or so written and hope to be able to keep posting a chapter a week. This may be interupted by RL drama but with a little luck that won't get in the way of important stuff (ficcing).
Thanks and much praise goes out to LMX_3point3 for the betaing!
Last but not least most/all of these chapters were written to songs. Not songfics so much as the songs would sort of help set the tone in my head and give some ideas of how to *start* to arrange a bunch of jumbled plotlines and scenes in a semi-followable way. I like to think of it as an accidental sound-track. Anyway, if anyone's interested I'll be posting links to the songs used.
Landing in London
Los Angeles
15 years ago
They were ghosts, shadows, black smudges in the ugly yellow glow of an old light fixture just barely illuminating the back doorway to the run-down apartment building behind them.
But they were, for this moment at least, smudges together. Two ghosts in an island of light in a dark alley on a long January night, lingering for one last moment.
One last touch on the shoulder in place of the kiss and farewell they would have liked to give one another, if not for the ever watchful eyes and loose tongues. Rumors could have them dead by morning should anyone ever add any of those forbidden words to their names.
One last smirking joke and bark of laughter.
One last reminder of a birthday in just two days.
One last teasing comment about being old enough to drink at last.
One last look.
One last silent promise.
Then one turned, letting himself into the building and the other lingered a moment longer in that ugly yellow glow, waiting to see the light in the apartment above him come on, before he turned away and faded back into the shadows.
He still had work to do.
For the rest of his life he’d regret assuming the light had meant all was well.
London, England
Present Day
Eliot came awake with a jerk.
Or at least he was awakened by a jerk.
The plane beneath him bounced and jolted, the look of the weather outside the window next to him told him he should be glad he could see the flight quickly descending toward Heathrow Airport in London.
He took a moment to breathe, force himself to calmly check around himself to make sure the other passengers didn’t look panicked and they weren’t descending *too* quickly toward the runway below.
It was only after he’d ascertained that the flight was just rough and not looking to kill him and the other passengers of trans Atlantic flight 824 (and he really needed to stop committing that kind of information to his brain when he was taking what, for him, amounted to a vacation) he settled back into his seat and commenced berating himself just a little.
Yes, he was technically on vacation.
Mental health holiday? Medical leave of absence?
Whatever.
Yes, he wasn’t technically on a job of any sort, and yes he should probably get as much sleep as he could now, considering in about two days he doubted he’d be able to get any sleep. Lord knows he was already having even more trouble than usual…
But that was no reason at all for him to get sloppy and sleep in a fucking public place.
Even if he knew he would have woken up if the stewardess so much as looked at him too long and if one of his enemies somehow managed to work through five levels of aliases, two separate hacks by Hardison and a last minute exchange of ticket to go to London instead of Madagascar then Eliot was probably screwed in the long run anyway.
Still. He was Eliot fucking Spencer.
He should know better.
The plane landed and Eliot let himself get lost in the motions of getting his shit together, getting his bag, getting off. All the lovely 'gettings' of travel. God knew he’d spent the whole week he took off last year traveling, just so he could get lost in those 'gettings' and not think about why he was taking the week off in the first place.
Why he always took the same week off, no matter what he was doing or where he was.
Of course, his getting was extended when he had to get himself some place to stay for at least this night. He didn’t have reservations. He’d changed flights at the last possible moment, not even sure why he decided he really needed to come to London of all places.
He just really needed to be here.
He rented a car and eventually found a little bed and breakfast place in a quieter part of the city, family run and a little homey. He’d leave and find a roach motel, or London's equivalent, in a couple of days. He liked the old couple who ran this place but they seemed like they’d take concern to strange noises coming from his room and didn’t want them caught in the middle of this week.
He booked the room for two days, paid in cash, and barely stashed his stuff away before leaving. He set out at a jog, figuring he’d run until his head cleared and then find a bar and a woman looking for no talk of tomorrow.
Yeah.
That had been the plan.
The plan hadn’t involved it starting to rain hard, even if he ignored it.
The plan hadn’t been finding himself in a place he was pretending he didn’t recognize, outside a building of apartments and condos he knew from photographs, trying to catch his breath and sooth nerves that wouldn’t let him stop twitching.
The plan hadn’t involved two flashbacks while out on the run just from seeing a man out with his kid or from a whiff of a smell he could almost, but not quite, recognize.
The plan unfortunately didn’t account for the fact it would be Valentine's day in less than a week and the UK was on the short list of places that celebrated the day he normally traveled to third world countries to avoid.
Still, he found himself walking the same crowded streets Nate had no more than a couple months ago, rain soaked hair clinging to his face and neck, the chill of the settling night seeping into his bones.
Eliot half wondered if Hardison was tracking him on traffic cams like he had Nate. He really hoped not. He’d been jogging for what felt like (and might actually have been) hours. He normally wouldn’t even be winded. He’d trained his body enough over the years that he could run at a light jog for… well not forever but a long, long time.
But he was out of breath. He was on edge. He was trying desperately to get a handle over himself.
He did not want them to witness him like this.
Hell. He didn’t want anyone to witness him like this.
That plan was forever and completely destroyed when he heard a voice call out to him. “Eliot?”
He looked up in time to see Sophie emerge from the throng and come over to him. “What are you doing here?” she asked, concern on her voice.
He licked his lips and tried to form some kind of answer that didn’t sound Parker crazy, or pathetic.
Or some variation on “I don’t know.”
He didn’t have to say it. A hint of understanding crossed Sophie’s face. “It’s February eighth,” she stated simply. She didn’t understand. Not completely. She was a good grifter but Eliot knew there was no way she could know or guess anything past something bad was happening, or had happened. Maybe judging from his disappearance around this time last year she could guess it was some kind of anniversary. His attitude had to tell her it was a bad one.
But she couldn’t know. She just couldn’t.
“Come inside. Have some tea. You look half frozen,” she insisted, accepting he was here like him jogging over to her place was normal. Like he hadn’t just flown across an ocean for reasons he wasn’t entirely sure about.
Her hand was warm when it settled briefly on his shoulder before she gently led him toward the door and up the stairs to her condo.
A half hour later he was sitting on her couch with a warm blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a mug of his favorite tea in his hands, shoulder to shoulder with Sophie watching a soccer game on her Tv, no questions asked.
He took a long drink, letting himself thaw out physically and maybe elsewise, and chanced a glance out the window.
The rain appeared to be letting up.
For the moment at least.
Boston, MA
There were some days when Nate wished he’d stayed sober, when he thought through the process of getting sober again and seriously almost considered it worth it.
And then there were days when he couldn’t wait until he was alone enough to drink himself into oblivion.
Today was the later.
Right now, though, his plan to drink himself into oblivion was being somewhat hindered by the difficulty he was having getting Hardison and Parker out the door.
Okay, so he was actually delaying them a little himself. Eliot was taking two weeks off, Nate wasn’t going to think about why, and Hardison had finally (finally) gotten his act together and had tried to persuade Parker to take advantage of this with him by going to Tokyo for a week.
Nate wondered if she really didn’t realize it was a date or if she was just playing up to what they’d come to expect from Parker. Some days Nate really thought she understood a lot more than she let on.
Parker had eventually agreed to doing the tourist thing for five days in New York city, so long as they stole at least one thing worth at least five hundred dollars every day. She’d been wanting to practice her “Snatching” abilities (by which Nate thought she meant her ability to pull off a heist with no prep time, but he didn’t want to know for certain).
Nate had ended up being pulled into the last minute preparations before the two set out for the air port. Hardison spent an entire hour giving him the run down of the latest updates to the “castle” (as Hardison was calling their building lately) security systems, how everyone’s “Out of state” panic buttons worked, and a reminder of how to work Hardison’s systems should Nate want to do research.
Then, of course, Parker had arrived and Nate ended up pulling her aside and giving her the list of pre-job reminders the team as a whole had been compiling over the past few years (ranging from how silverware is not weaponry, to the rule that pick pocketing cops is a bad idea no matter how fun it is).
Parker left to grab what she called "her other repelling gear”. Nate had a feeling he really did not want to know what she meant by that and to distract himself Nate reminded Hardison that Eliot would break his legs and Nate would let him, should Hardison in any way hurt Parker.
While Hardison was having a minor freak out of denial Nate took the opportunity to slip a folded piece of paper into Hardison’s bag.
Later Hardison would discover the list of those living in New York city who Nate knew to have had corrupt dealings at one point or another.
Just a little extra moral protection for when Parker got the itch.
Parker returned with, of all things, a purse and they grabbed their suitcases and finally, finally, got out the door.
Nate drifted through the apartment, straightening this and that left out of place by the flurry of activity that had set in. He considered spending the night here, hopefully warding off loneliness by avoiding the apartment he normally shared with Eliot. He was trying not to think of the younger man but it was hard, the more he realized how long it had been since they’d spent more than a day or two away from each other.
The week ahead kept getting longer and longer.
It was ironic, really, and somewhat pathetic that he kept thinking about how it would be Valentine’s Day in a week and that this was the second time in a row he’d be spending it alone despite being in a steady relationship. Of course, considering…
It was likely he’d spend the rest of them alone.
He took a drink of the coffee sitting in the mug on the counter, nearly pulling a spit take over the ice cold coffee orange soda mix that Parker had started to drink recently.
He could almost hear Eliot saying “there’s something wrong with her.”
With a sigh Nate dumped the noxious concoction in the sink and went for more coffee, surprised to find the pot empty. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
He was going through the strangely unfamiliar motions of making coffee before he realized it had been months since he’d made himself coffee. The pot was always there, always enough for at least one last cup, freshly brewed at the usual times he went for coffee and he’d just never questioned it but…
He realized Eliot working in the kitchen was such a familiar sight that all the times he’d seen Eliot making coffee had never registered. It was Eliot being Eliot and the fact Eliot only drank tea had never quite processed all the way.
Nate stared at the package of filters in his hands like he didn’t know what they were and tried not to process why that realization made him want to drink.
Eliot was a master of doing little things for people without being noticed.
When was the last time he’d done something little for Eliot?
He left the coffee half-made and turned for the first alcohol he could put his hands on.
He was about to open the beer when it registered it wasn’t Eliot’s favorite kind. While in their old place Eliot had kept a full stock of his favorite kinds of beer Eliot had never brought alcohol into Nate’s apartment or the one they shared, even on the rare occasions he did the grocery shopping.
Even after Nate had started to drink again.
He had five days before any of the others showed up to knock on his door again.
He had this sudden, half impulsive urge to just not drink, go through the withdrawl, send Hardison and Parker home when they came by, and be sober when Eliot got home from wherever he was.
Maybe he’d be able to convince Sophie to come back if he was sober.
He’d opened the beer before he realized it, the dream died as he habitually took a sip.
Later he’d wish, in private, that it had been Eliot that had been the turning point, not his own need for control. Not the fact that things were getting so out of control already that even as he considered getting back on the wagon he all but couldn’t help taking a long drink.
Thinking of Eliot coming home worn out, down, rubbed raw by the thing that had made him ask for time off, only to slowly realize there were no signs Nate had been drinking in the past two weeks, noticing the signs that Nate had gone through withdrawl, his face lighting up the way Nate wished it did more, when Eliot realized Nate was back on the wagon…
Instead of that, the drink burned down his throat and he saw himself sitting at the kitchen counter, watching the door, drinking until he’s drunk, waiting for Eliot to get home. Eliot walking in the door, worn out, rubbed raw, confronted with Nate drunk and just turning around and leaving. Walking away like Sophie.
He saw the rest of them walking away.
He dumped the beer in the sink before he let his body process what he was doing.
He busied his hands making something, making tea. Taking a small note of comfort from the fact he knew how to make Eliot’s favorite tea off the top of his head, not letting himself think of anything else besides that.
When the tea is done he took the mug and left the apartment, going up to Eliot’s studio, sitting on the wide bench on the back wall under a window that had good, very good, memories of the times he’d watch Eliot’s late night training and “help” him work on “endurance”.
He sat and drank his tea and thought of Eliot.
He knew in the morning he’d probably give in to habit and have a drink or twelve.
But for the moment he’d drink Eliot’s tea and tell himself he was going to take back control of one thing in his life.
Los Angeles
19 years ago
She had been watching them for a while now. It was hard to be sure and she had to be sure.
One wrong move and Samuel was likely to go so far underground that all of her sisters together couldn’t have sniffed him out.
So she watched them, like a ghost, like the ghosts they were.
She had tracked down most of the unit by now. They were street kids, the oldest she’d found didn’t look like he could be older than twenty and god only knew life on the street made you age faster than you should. Maybe that was why she was still doing this instead of just doing what she did best and leaving.
Well that and the fact she had to be realistic. She doubted it would be the easiest job, to do what she’d originally come to do when she heard Samuel was in LA.
She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but knowing who these kids were… From all reports she had found the project had been going on for at least two years. And from what she had heard there had been a lot more than the thirteen students now remaining when the project had started.
It looked like they’d been having more success here than they’d ever had on the east coast. She needed someone on the inside, but after two years these kids were probably about as close to brainwashed as they could get.
Still these two, the oldest and another… there was something different about them. If she could just get them to open their eyes and fight back they would be able to get to the others and maybe this time they could take down Samuel for good.
If she was wrong though…
She just couldn’t be wrong. Simple as that.
With long practiced ease she made her way down the fire escape to the alley below where the two boys lingered on the back stoop of an apartment building.
She gave a hand sign that told them that she knew much more about them then they’d probably ever thought a woman like her would know.
“Hello.” They returned her greeting by standing, falling into complementary defensive stances. A part of her mind registered that they’d been trained to fight as a pair as well as by themselves. The closeness between them was more obvious in their stance than anything she’d seen yet. “I’m not here for a fight.”
The older one narrowed his eyes, not even twitching when a sudden sharp breeze blew strands of his long hair into his face. “Then what are you here for?”
She met each sets of angry blue eyes steadily in turn as she spoke. “I need to talk to you boys about Samuel.” Neither boy’s face betrayed them, though there was just a hint of shock in the younger boy’s eyes. “I want to help get you out.”
Present Day
“This is him,” Tara said, looking down at the body on a slab in a morgue in LA. His eyes were closed but she could almost imagine those same blue eyes she’d seen in that alley years ago standing so fierce and solid next to Echo. They’d kept in touch even after everything that had happened. Even after Echo disappeared and they all left LA. A friendship forged by hellfire and a mutual desire for revenge against a shared enemy. Neither of them had been saints, or become them. Though Charlie had made nine kinds of fun of her when he found out what she was up to as a favor to Sophie. He still gave her no small amount of grief about how she didn’t seem able to help herself when it came down to it.
Bleeding-heart Tara. Once, only two people on earth could get away with calling her that.
And now they were both dead, even if one was more official in that death than the other.
Some part of her still wondered if she’d one day be the one to identify Echo’s body.
No. Not anymore. Echo was long dead. She doubted she would even have recognized him if n-
“Full name?” the coroner asked.
“Charlie November India,” she stated coldly.
The coroner stopped halfway through writing it and asked, “His parents military?”
“Something like that,” Tara answered. She mentally apologized for not being able to give the coroner his real name, but that was Charlie’s own fault for never telling her. “How did he die?” she asked, though the bullet hole in his forehead told her execution style it never hurt to ask.
Besides, this was Charlie. The only way you could shoot Charlie at point blank range was if you had him chained up to the point he couldn’t even twitch.
Or if you were Samuel, a small almost scared part of her mind whispered.
“At first I thought it was the GSW to the head. Rather effective. But then upon the Bureau’s instance I looked closer. Suicide by cyanide. He had a capsule hidden in a false back molar, very cold war era- esq. There was also some tissue damage to the gums that made me consider the possibility that someone forced the capsule to break but… no. Further examination revealed that it was highly unlikely. Obviously someone took the time to clean him up and make it look like a kill. Very odd.”
She’d been afraid of that.
“Well thank you for calling this in when you found the contact number on his body. I’ll remind you again this man was a sleeper agent and we’re trusting you to keep this quiet in the interest of national security. You’ve been very helpful.” God, she was starting to sound like Hardison. Maybe this break the team was on would be good for her. “If anything else comes up please contact me personally at this number.”
“It was my pleasure Agent Sinclair.” He took her card and turned to put it away. By the time he turned back she was long gone from the morgue.
An hour later she found herself on the rooftop she’d watched Charlie and Echo from, before she had even known their names. Where she’d watched over two boys and considered an action that would change the course of all three of their lives.
Charlie was dead.
She wouldn’t cry for him. It wasn’t her style even if he was one of those people to her.
It seemed almost unfair. They’d both cried when Echo disappeared, if only a handful of tears that didn’t even beginning to wash away the blood they’d found, covering the warehouse floor after they’d heard the news. His body hadn’t been among those found but… it was hard to tell themselves there was any chance he wasn’t dead. They’d been younger then and the world had been colder and they’d been crying as much for themselves as the one they’d lost.
She wouldn’t cry for Charlie and it was only fair.
After all when she died there would be no one left to cry for her.
But she would get him revenge, and finish what he’d started. What she’d started.
What the three of them had started.
Weeks ago he’d passed through Boston to see her, hell it was how she’d discovered he knew Eliot (And she’d have to figure out how to contact Eliot and tell him that Charlie was dead and she didn’t want to think about that). He’d told her he’d heard disturbing rumors and thought that maybe Samuel had finally come out of hiding only he didn’t like what he was hearing about the reasons why. He was afraid that maybe things were starting again.
She’d told him to be careful. To remember that Samuel would always have a huge advantage over him. That it was stupid and he should just fucking wait for her to finish paying Sophie back the favor and then they could check it out together. A few weeks or months wouldn’t make that much of a difference.
But he’d gone ahead, alone, and had ended up dead.
Tara didn’t know what he’d found, but there was only one reason Charlie would kill himself.
Samuel.
She had to move fast. She didn’t know what Samuel knew or if this was going to send him underground again.
She needed help.
A thought came to mind and she winced.
So much for being even with Sophie after this stint with the Leverage crew.
But at least she’d be even with Charlie.
She pulled out her phone and dialed Sophie.
London, England
Sophie watched Eliot out of the corner of her eye as he got more and more involved with the game on TV. It had been mostly on accident, out of habit really, that she’d made sure to get a sports channel package, but now she was more than glad she had.
She didn’t know what was going on with Eliot, though she had her theories, none of which she liked.
The Eliot and Nate thing had been a huge piece of why she left. But she had missed Eliot on more levels than she’d admit to. For reasons she couldn’t quite let herself process, she felt safer when he was around. And warmer. Some days it felt like he was the team’s sun warming and giving them nurturance so steadily you don’t even notice he’s there until he’s not anymore.
She wondered if she could convince him to cook her dinner.
He probably didn’t need convincing, just permission to use her kitchen.
She was starting to get into the game herself when her cell phone rang. Gesturing to Eliot to just keep watching and ignore her she took the phone into the kitchen.
She was surprised to find it was Tara on the line. “Tara?”
“Yeah,” Tara confirmed. “Listen I know I said I’d keep an eye on things but something happened outside the team.” A pause before Tara stated, her voice forcibly neutral, “Charlie’s dead.” Sophie felt her stomach drop a little. She didn’t know Charlie personally but in the months she and Tara ran together when they first met she knew Tara had found a payphone at least once a week to call this mysterious Charlie and let him know she was still alive and tell him about her latest exploits. They were about as close as you could get to anyone in their line of work. “I don’t know what happened but it doesn’t look good.”
Absently Sophie heard the game in the other room mute but she shook it off. “Take the time you need,” Sophie told Tara. “The team’s not going to be doing anything for another week at least. Though if it’s not too personal maybe see if you can get Nate to help you. It never hurts to have IYS’ best investigator on your side.” She didn’t verbally add that with Nate drinking again leaving him alone for a week was not the best idea.
“Help with what?” Eliot asked, he’d come to stand in the doorway.
“Is Eliot there?” Tara asked on the other end of the line, obviously confused.
Sophie mentally rolled her eyes. She hated having conversations in person and on the phone at the same time. It was times like this that she thought they should just all wear their comms all the time. She covered the phone’s receiver and told Eliot, “A friend of Tara’s died.” Before putting the phone back to her ear. “Yes, he’s here, he’s passing through London and stopped in for a visit.”
“Oh.” Tara said sounding like she didn’t know what to make of it. “Could you give him a message from me?”
“Of course. Though you could tell him yourself,” Sophie supplied, mentally wondering when she became the team’s messenger service and handed the phone over to Eliot.
“Tara?” he asked, confusion plainly on his face. Sophie couldn’t hear what Tara said but she could see shock followed by disbelief cross Eliot’s face. “Dead? Charlie? How... how did you know I kn… I’ll be there soon as I can…” Anger, a familiar and oddly comforting emotion replaced the others. “Fuck no. I don’t care. I ain't staying here while this shit goes down. I don’t care, Tara. Tara?” More anger as he looked at the phone.
Sophie wasn’t surprised that Tara had just hung up on him. It was Tara after all.
Eliot was already turning to go. He paused long enough to take a breath and thank her for the hospitality but he had to go.
She watched him, the tense lines and gritted teeth and all the signs of everything he’d been carrying when he turned up on her doorstep and everything pushing, bending, and threatening to break him all those times since the team first came together. The anger and pain blended into a white hot fire ready to burn down anything in his path.
Instinct told her to get out of the way, that this was Eliot in his determined mode and that she should just let him go like she always did. Like they always did. Just like in Kentucky and Nebraska and everything else.
In the end you just had to let him go.
But he had turned up this afternoon at her place soaking wet and chilled and looking lost. In Kentucky he’d come back alive when they let him go but hurting worse for the venture. In Nebraska, hell everywhere, in the end they let him go and get hurt and maybe they couldn’t do anything but they never really seemed to try. Eliot was Eliot. He always came back, you just had to let her go off alone sometimes.
Him. You had to let him go off alone.
He was half the reason she had left.
But a part of the other half was to see if anyone would care enough to chase after her, to tell her they needed her to come back.
She was still waiting for that but…
She hurried after him, placing a hand on his shoulder to stop him before he walked out the door.