Turn Left
Title: Turn Left
Prompt: IYS
Fandom/Pairing: Leverage, Gen
Medium: Fic
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: In which Sam didn't die.
Nathan Ford is one of the best insurance investigators. After recovering dozens of famous paintings, saving IYS billions dollars, Nathan Ford becomes a valuable asset to his company, an asset that IYS is willing to pay millions dollars to keep within the company.
(Even though he has to beg for it. He takes countless trips to his boss' office, prepares paper after paper to prove the treatment should be covered by Sam's insurance police, he loses his temper several times, he almost loses his hope, he stands in front of Blackpool for hours plead and plead for his son's life. In the end, the man sitting behind the desk nods coldly and agrees to sign the document.)
He couldn't thank him enough, couldn't thank IYS enough. Three days after Sam's surgery, he goes back to work. He owns IYS his son's life, hard-working is the only way he can repay them.
("Nathan, IYS recognizes your contribution all these years", he remembers Blackpool's words, "this is how we show our appreciation. And we hope, in the future, you'll show us that we made the right decision." Which, he understands completely, means more money being saved, more artworks being recovered and more thieves being caught (Sophie Devereaux, just to name one).)
***
On the third case since he comes back to work, two months after Sam's surgery, he encounters Eloit Spencer. The retrieval specialist is on a mission of acquiring an antiquity IYS insured. Two days before his action, Nate figures out his plan and hires Mr. Quinn, another hitter to stop him. He knows, at the time, who Spencer works for (you may never meet Damien Moreau, but you surely have heard of him) and what will wait for him if he doesn't get the antiquity. But then, that's not his business to care, all he have to do is saving his company 18 million dollars.
On his fifth job, Sam is already happily back to school, he catches a hacker right when he is transferring money from his client's account. The hacker is a very young man, a bit cocky, but truly talented. The young man asks Nate to let him go before the police comes, his voice sincere, his eyes pleading, "I promise this will be my last time, Sir, but my nana need this money. My nana need 50 thousand dollars to pay her medical bills, she is dying, Sir, 50 thousand dollars ain't even a large number for you client." He doesn't let him go. No, 50 thousand dollars aren't a huge number, but he owns IYS much more than that.
After Sam's 10th birthday, he and James are determined to catch Parker. No one ever come close to that thief. It takes them three months to go over her every known thefts and still haven't come up with a plan. One day, James hands him a file containing a photo of an old gentleman. "Archie", James explains, "he is the closest thing Parker has as a family. It would be easier for us to get him first and use him as a bait." He wonders, for a brief moment, how it would feel like if someone use Sam against him, but he nods his head anyway.
***
Inevitably, three years after Sam gets better, IYS sends him to Paris and he once again meets the grifter, Sophie Devereaux. Her smile and teasing are still all so familiar when she sees him. Like old days, she runs, and he chases, but he wonders if she knows that something has changed this time around.
Just when she is about to end their game like usual and disappear into a dark alley, he pulls his gun out and shoots her from behind.
"Nate?" She called out, breathing his name with a whole mixture of pain and shock and anger and disbelief. He smiles bitterly at the memory of she cursing "you wanker" last time he shot her, but they both know now things are different this time.
He cuffs her and calls the police. Their eyes meet briefly before the policemen take her away; she looks at him as if seeing a completely stranger, her gaze cold and distant, but still falls heavily on his figure and almost crushes him.
He walks away first, before they drive her away, her blood thick on his hands. That is the last time he ever see Sophie Devereaux.
(He hears that she manages to get away later, but she falls off his radar ever since. He doesn't look her up anymore, he feels he lost the right.)
***
Five years later, Nathan Ford is the best in his business. He isn't sure if he likes the man he is now, but he has a job, a happy family. His son is about to turn 13 this year, and he won't trade anything in the world for that.