Fic: Coming Full Circle
Title: Coming Full Circle
Author: telaryn
Fandom: Leverage/BTVS
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Faith + Leverage Team
Summary: Faith waits to play her part in the Leverage team's ultimate con - making the ultimate sacrifice.
Warnings: Spoilers for the Leverage episode "The Long Goodbye Job"
Author notes: This is a story in The Ties That Bind Job 'Verse, wherein Faith discovers she is the illegitimate daughter of Leverage team Mastermind Nathan Ford.
”Out of the question.”
It was a mark of how far their relationship had evolved that Faith hadn’t thought twice about standing up to her father. “It’s the best way to sell the con and you know it - especially if Sterling’s going to be reviewing those tapes.”
“He’s going to figure it out - I’ve allowed for that.” They’d been in the office, working out the last details of the job so much hinged on, even if the others didn’t know yet what she knew. “Doing this doesn’t gain us anything.”
“It turns you into a man who’s truly lost everything.” All eyes had turned to Sophie at that point. Out of all of them, she was the only one who didn’t flinch from calling Nate on his over-protective tendencies where Faith was concerned. Ironic when the child you’re scared of losing is a super hero. “Leaving Faith in play changes how they’ll deal with you. You need them to believe that you’re utterly beaten, at least for a little while.”
In the end Nate had agreed, which was why Faith was currently waiting by herself in the back of the van, trying to make sure she only checked her watch at a minimum of five minute intervals. Eliot had already checked and rechecked the fit of the Kevlar hugging her upper body before heading out to his own part in their little play. He’d also insisted on drilling her on the blocking for what they were about to do, until she had finally threatened to make sure he ended up shot for real.
“It’s all on you,” he’d said again, cupping her cheek in his palm and forcing eye contact; his expression deadly serious. “If you give him even a split second to think about what he’s doing, he’s going to flinch and one of us is really going to end up hurt.” He’d been half out of the van, getting ready to rejoin Parker and Hardison in the building and start the run that would lead all of them back here to Faith’s position.
She’d allowed the final warning without protest, leaning in and kissing him deeply before letting him go. They were all on edge - and he wasn’t wrong. Try as he might, Nate didn’t have it in him to shoot her deliberately. She was going to have to literally throw herself in the path of the bullet while he was firing it at Eliot.
Silence wrapped itself around her, memory crowding close. Nate had refused to budge on the issue of her being in the building with them. “Once the Steranko tags you with facial recognition, it’s all over. I can’t have Hardison distracted trying to keep you out of prison.”
It was strange - her past misdeeds affected her life so rarely these days it was easy to forget that once upon a time she’d been resigned to spend the rest of her life behind bars; atoning in the most basic, Spartan of ways for the lives she’d prematurely cut short. Then the Powers That Be had called her to a more active form of redemption, giving her the opportunity to balance the scales of her life by helping other people.
And then they had rewarded her with Nate, who had brought into her life the family she had always been missing. Her father had shown her a way to continue helping people, while having the normal happy life that had always seemed just beyond her reach.
Not for the first time, Faith wondered about Buffy - her “good” twin - and what weird quirk of fate had flipped their lives so completely. When she’d first made her way from Boston to California, she’d wanted nothing more than to be a Slayer in the old traditional way; unencumbered by things like family and friends and emotional ties. She would train and grow strong and kill all the monsters, and no one would hurt her again.
Finding that Buffy had all the things she’d been denied, and that moreover she saw them as strengths instead of the weaknesses Faith had found them to be, had been a surprise. Even though years later she could own her choices in how she’d handled things, Buffy’s refusal to share her life with Faith had been a deep, painful cut she’d been years in healing.
Now Buffy was the one wholly committed to the life of a Slayer, and her repeated inability to handle even the semblance of a normal life was starting to rival anything Faith had experienced.
The ring of her wrist alarm jolted her out of her reverie. Ten minutes, give or take. Rolling her head on her neck to loosen suddenly tense muscles, Faith shifted into a crouch, threw open the back doors of the van and waited for her cue.
Adrenaline lit up her nervous system when the loading dock door finally burst open and Parker and Hardison stumbled through. They were bloodstained and breathing heavily, and even though Faith knew intellectually that it was an act Hardison was moving as though his leg was really broken.
“Come on!” she called, stretching out her arm and waggling her fingers for them to hurry. Parker’s eyes locked with hers, and her heart twisted in her chest at the very real pain and fear she saw inside the thief’s blue gaze. This part was hard on all of them, something she hadn’t really appreciated until this moment.
Their fingertips had just brushed when the door banged open again and a uniformed figure appeared - gun drawn and aimed at the three of them. Faith’s brain helpfully broke down the image into its component parts; the blue of the official-looking uniform, and the pistol ready to end them all foremost in her awareness.
She was pulling thief and hacker into the van, when Eliot barreled into the security guard, knocking him flat. The hitter cleared his target with a small leap, then continued down the ramp towards them.
He doesn’t have it in him…he doesn’t have it in him… Faith waited until she saw the guard’s hand reach down for his ankle holster, waited until he was drawing his back-up weapon before she gripped Parker and Hardison’s shoulders and used them to leverage herself into a leap from the back of the van.
Faith moved fast enough that she was nearly to Eliot’s side by the time the gun was aimed. The sound of the shot bridged the gap between her and the weapon just as she barreled into Eliot - knocking him out of harm’s way.
A split second before the bullet hammer punched into her chest, setting off the blood packs Eliot had wired in place, she looked directly into the horrified blue eyes of her father. She’d executed her part perfectly, given him the emotional ammunition he would need to face the dragons of Interpol and get the team over the obstacles that remained between them and their ultimate goal.
I’m sorry, she thought, letting her body go limp just as Eliot scrambled to his feet and a second shot sounded impossibly loud in her ears. It had to be done. They all understood that and Faith had been willing to step up and do her part, but she hadn’t stopped to consider that after everything he’d been through this was one of those moments that would scar her father forever.
The next several moments passed in a blur, Eliot half carrying, half dragging her to the van and the two of them collapsing in beside Parker and Hardison. Faith immediately forced herself back into action as Eliot closed the doors, scrambling over thief and hacker and throwing herself into the passenger front seat. Nate was getting into the driver’s seat at the same time, having skirted the camera’s field of vision to make it seem like two different people were in play.
“Hair,” he snapped, glancing quickly at her as he threw the van into gear and left at least two layers of rubber on the asphalt getting them underway.
Poor Lucille, Faith thought, clawing her ponytail out and shaking her dark hair until it fell loosely around her face. “You sure people are going to fall for this?” she asked, looking back at her father. Nate’s expression was grim, his eyes fixed on the road in front of them.
“They’re only going to see you at a glance,” he said. “Add that to the security camera footage, and the natural assumption is going to be that you’re Sophie - not you.” Faith could hear the others moving around in the back, getting ready to bail at the rendezvous point. Four bodies would be recovered from the van, but only she and Nate would be going into the water.
Almost as if he’d read her mind, Eliot reached up and gripped Faith’s shoulder. “Oxygen is under your seats. Promise me you’ll use it.”
Faith started to protest that it was only going to be a few minutes and she would be fine (hello, Slayer!), but something drew her around until they were looking deep into each other’s eyes and she saw just how worried he was for her. “I will,” she said softly.
“We both will.” Turning, Faith saw that Nate had turned his head slightly so he could see her while he watched the road. He held out his hand and Faith took it - shifting in her seat so she was facing forward again. “You all right?”
Pulse pounding against her throat as she heard the first sirens fall into position behind them, Faith nevertheless managed a shadow of her old cocksure grin for him.
“Five by five.”
Author: telaryn
Fandom: Leverage/BTVS
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Faith + Leverage Team
Summary: Faith waits to play her part in the Leverage team's ultimate con - making the ultimate sacrifice.
Warnings: Spoilers for the Leverage episode "The Long Goodbye Job"
Author notes: This is a story in The Ties That Bind Job 'Verse, wherein Faith discovers she is the illegitimate daughter of Leverage team Mastermind Nathan Ford.
”Out of the question.”
It was a mark of how far their relationship had evolved that Faith hadn’t thought twice about standing up to her father. “It’s the best way to sell the con and you know it - especially if Sterling’s going to be reviewing those tapes.”
“He’s going to figure it out - I’ve allowed for that.” They’d been in the office, working out the last details of the job so much hinged on, even if the others didn’t know yet what she knew. “Doing this doesn’t gain us anything.”
“It turns you into a man who’s truly lost everything.” All eyes had turned to Sophie at that point. Out of all of them, she was the only one who didn’t flinch from calling Nate on his over-protective tendencies where Faith was concerned. Ironic when the child you’re scared of losing is a super hero. “Leaving Faith in play changes how they’ll deal with you. You need them to believe that you’re utterly beaten, at least for a little while.”
In the end Nate had agreed, which was why Faith was currently waiting by herself in the back of the van, trying to make sure she only checked her watch at a minimum of five minute intervals. Eliot had already checked and rechecked the fit of the Kevlar hugging her upper body before heading out to his own part in their little play. He’d also insisted on drilling her on the blocking for what they were about to do, until she had finally threatened to make sure he ended up shot for real.
“It’s all on you,” he’d said again, cupping her cheek in his palm and forcing eye contact; his expression deadly serious. “If you give him even a split second to think about what he’s doing, he’s going to flinch and one of us is really going to end up hurt.” He’d been half out of the van, getting ready to rejoin Parker and Hardison in the building and start the run that would lead all of them back here to Faith’s position.
She’d allowed the final warning without protest, leaning in and kissing him deeply before letting him go. They were all on edge - and he wasn’t wrong. Try as he might, Nate didn’t have it in him to shoot her deliberately. She was going to have to literally throw herself in the path of the bullet while he was firing it at Eliot.
Silence wrapped itself around her, memory crowding close. Nate had refused to budge on the issue of her being in the building with them. “Once the Steranko tags you with facial recognition, it’s all over. I can’t have Hardison distracted trying to keep you out of prison.”
It was strange - her past misdeeds affected her life so rarely these days it was easy to forget that once upon a time she’d been resigned to spend the rest of her life behind bars; atoning in the most basic, Spartan of ways for the lives she’d prematurely cut short. Then the Powers That Be had called her to a more active form of redemption, giving her the opportunity to balance the scales of her life by helping other people.
And then they had rewarded her with Nate, who had brought into her life the family she had always been missing. Her father had shown her a way to continue helping people, while having the normal happy life that had always seemed just beyond her reach.
Not for the first time, Faith wondered about Buffy - her “good” twin - and what weird quirk of fate had flipped their lives so completely. When she’d first made her way from Boston to California, she’d wanted nothing more than to be a Slayer in the old traditional way; unencumbered by things like family and friends and emotional ties. She would train and grow strong and kill all the monsters, and no one would hurt her again.
Finding that Buffy had all the things she’d been denied, and that moreover she saw them as strengths instead of the weaknesses Faith had found them to be, had been a surprise. Even though years later she could own her choices in how she’d handled things, Buffy’s refusal to share her life with Faith had been a deep, painful cut she’d been years in healing.
Now Buffy was the one wholly committed to the life of a Slayer, and her repeated inability to handle even the semblance of a normal life was starting to rival anything Faith had experienced.
The ring of her wrist alarm jolted her out of her reverie. Ten minutes, give or take. Rolling her head on her neck to loosen suddenly tense muscles, Faith shifted into a crouch, threw open the back doors of the van and waited for her cue.
Adrenaline lit up her nervous system when the loading dock door finally burst open and Parker and Hardison stumbled through. They were bloodstained and breathing heavily, and even though Faith knew intellectually that it was an act Hardison was moving as though his leg was really broken.
“Come on!” she called, stretching out her arm and waggling her fingers for them to hurry. Parker’s eyes locked with hers, and her heart twisted in her chest at the very real pain and fear she saw inside the thief’s blue gaze. This part was hard on all of them, something she hadn’t really appreciated until this moment.
Their fingertips had just brushed when the door banged open again and a uniformed figure appeared - gun drawn and aimed at the three of them. Faith’s brain helpfully broke down the image into its component parts; the blue of the official-looking uniform, and the pistol ready to end them all foremost in her awareness.
She was pulling thief and hacker into the van, when Eliot barreled into the security guard, knocking him flat. The hitter cleared his target with a small leap, then continued down the ramp towards them.
He doesn’t have it in him…he doesn’t have it in him… Faith waited until she saw the guard’s hand reach down for his ankle holster, waited until he was drawing his back-up weapon before she gripped Parker and Hardison’s shoulders and used them to leverage herself into a leap from the back of the van.
Faith moved fast enough that she was nearly to Eliot’s side by the time the gun was aimed. The sound of the shot bridged the gap between her and the weapon just as she barreled into Eliot - knocking him out of harm’s way.
A split second before the bullet hammer punched into her chest, setting off the blood packs Eliot had wired in place, she looked directly into the horrified blue eyes of her father. She’d executed her part perfectly, given him the emotional ammunition he would need to face the dragons of Interpol and get the team over the obstacles that remained between them and their ultimate goal.
I’m sorry, she thought, letting her body go limp just as Eliot scrambled to his feet and a second shot sounded impossibly loud in her ears. It had to be done. They all understood that and Faith had been willing to step up and do her part, but she hadn’t stopped to consider that after everything he’d been through this was one of those moments that would scar her father forever.
The next several moments passed in a blur, Eliot half carrying, half dragging her to the van and the two of them collapsing in beside Parker and Hardison. Faith immediately forced herself back into action as Eliot closed the doors, scrambling over thief and hacker and throwing herself into the passenger front seat. Nate was getting into the driver’s seat at the same time, having skirted the camera’s field of vision to make it seem like two different people were in play.
“Hair,” he snapped, glancing quickly at her as he threw the van into gear and left at least two layers of rubber on the asphalt getting them underway.
Poor Lucille, Faith thought, clawing her ponytail out and shaking her dark hair until it fell loosely around her face. “You sure people are going to fall for this?” she asked, looking back at her father. Nate’s expression was grim, his eyes fixed on the road in front of them.
“They’re only going to see you at a glance,” he said. “Add that to the security camera footage, and the natural assumption is going to be that you’re Sophie - not you.” Faith could hear the others moving around in the back, getting ready to bail at the rendezvous point. Four bodies would be recovered from the van, but only she and Nate would be going into the water.
Almost as if he’d read her mind, Eliot reached up and gripped Faith’s shoulder. “Oxygen is under your seats. Promise me you’ll use it.”
Faith started to protest that it was only going to be a few minutes and she would be fine (hello, Slayer!), but something drew her around until they were looking deep into each other’s eyes and she saw just how worried he was for her. “I will,” she said softly.
“We both will.” Turning, Faith saw that Nate had turned his head slightly so he could see her while he watched the road. He held out his hand and Faith took it - shifting in her seat so she was facing forward again. “You all right?”
Pulse pounding against her throat as she heard the first sirens fall into position behind them, Faith nevertheless managed a shadow of her old cocksure grin for him.
“Five by five.”