Just a Soldier: Part One
Title: Just a Soldier {1/2}
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: gen,Elio and Nate centric
Verse: N/a
Fandom: Leverage
Summary: The night before the Leverage team leaves San Lorenzo General Flores tells Nate about his history with Eliot.
Notes: Written for Ziplocless who won my Help_Japan auction.
Many thanks and much praise to my ever patient beta LMX_V3Point3.
Major spoilers to the season 3 finale.
Title comes from the song Sound the Bugle.
Nate hadn’t been looking for Eliot, or anyone else for that matter. Sophie was upstairs, doing whatever Sophie did when she declared she needed “Me” time. She’d been doing it after every job since she got back, so Nate hadn’t questioned it. He’d just headed down to the hotel bar to wait the next couple of hours before continuing their friendly drinks.
He hadn’t expected to see anyone.
But before he'd even entered the bar he’d found something of note. There were enough security men hanging around that it had to be either the new president or one of the higher ranking staff. Someone who’d learned to be paranoid and who could now slowly learn not to be.
That felt almost as good as a drink.
He walked into the bar and glanced around, checking to see who had wandered into their hotel and if he should be on guard.
He really shouldn’t have been half as surprised as he was to find Eliot and General Floressitting in a booth, drinking, talking. There was laughter between them but there was also tension. Not as much as before. Not the warmth with subtext of something heavy.
But there was still a hint, one of the shadows still clinging to Eliot.
Sometimes Nate wondered if they’d ever see Eliot free of shadows. Though this business with Moreau was giving him the rather unpleasant feeling he and Eliot had at least one thing in common.
They didn’t want to be free. For all they kept you awake at night there was something about them that…
Nate knew Eliot well enough by now to know it was those things clinging to the hitter that drove his endless self control and discipline and effort to be the good guy, the honorable guy.
And it had become a part of who he was.
He needed a drink.
But then as if he’d felt Nate’s eyes on him (the bastard probably had) Eliot looked up and caught him staring. He looked back to Flores, finished his drink in one long gulp and got up to leave, passing wordlessly by Nate.
Flores turned, watching Nate with appraising eyes. Nate almost wondered if… but no. There was the same warmth as always but no heat.
“Mister Ford,” Flores called to him. “Come. Have a drink with me.”
Curious, Nate walked close enough they could have a conversation without shouting, though he didn’t sit down. “There was a time when my people would celebrate this sort of victory with bonfires and story-telling about our county’s heroes.” He gave a dry smile and took another drink, something far away in his eyes.
Nate sat down. He knew Flores’s type. The General wouldn’t have mentioned it without reason. “So tell me a story,” he said, motioning for the waitress to bring him his usual. “How did Eliot save your life?”
Flores gave him a long, calculating look that had the weight of something so familiar.
Then he smiled and relaxed back into the booth, the strict posture of his military rank easing out. “I met Spencer fourteen years ago. I was working the security detail of one of my countries dignitaries, who was working to secure a peace treaty with one of our neighbors. We had not anticipated a fight and we had not been aware of the unrest in the neighboring countries. We were ambushed, many good men lost their lives to protect our ambassador.” He shook his head at the memory. “But we were overpowered and taken.”
The waitress brought Nate’s drink and he took a sip, motioning for Flores to continue.
“I do not know what our captors had planed for the eight of us they held, but it quickly became obvious they were not getting what they wanted. They became agitated as days passed. Our treatment grew worse.” His voice didn’t hint to any emotion at the memory, though Nate did notice his grip on his glass tightened.
Suddenly Flores smiled, something far away in his eyes. “Twenty-three years old. Bright eyes… The stuff of heroes…”
oOo
“What was that?” Flores asked the darkness, forcing his arms to push him into a sitting position. Two weeks of little food, bad conditions, and increasing abuse had left most of them weaker than any of the soldiers liked to admit. His cell mate was asleep, not stirring at the question, and Flores felt a moment of irrational fear that the man was dead.
Another muffled clang and a shout.
“Did anyone else hear that?” There were no lights on in their prison. It was the middle of the night. But the bared doors to their cells meant they could at least communicate.
“Fighting,” Sergeant Hawkins said from the next cell over. “Conrad! Wake up!” A grunt and the startled sound of the man awakening. “Wake up the ambassador."
Flores turned to his cell mate, the first hints of adrenalin helping ease out the feeling of lead in his limbs, trying to nudge the man awake, feeling the unnatural heat of a fever.
The door to their prison eased open, bright light flooding in, all but blinding them. Flores fought to see, a figure stood haloed by the light.
Then he was moving towards their cell. “Who are you?” Flores asked.
His eyes finally started to adjust to the light in time to meet the eyes of the boy (just a boy, not much older than twenty at most) as he smiled, his blue eyes so very bright as he said. “Well sir, we’d be the Calvary.”
oOo
“He led us out of there while the rest of his team cleared the way. Fifty feet from the exit one of the enemy reached us. Put a gun to my head. Spencer took him down with a single shot. Said his team never lost a retrieval, he wasn’t about to start.” There was something bitter in those words. “He led us to the pickup location and twenty-four hours later we were receiving a hero’s welcome in San Lorenzo. The Americans who had rescued us had left our company as soon as we were safe. The man who saved us told me they didn’t do what they did for the parades.” He sighed. “I remember thinking how bright his eyes were when he said it. I did not know their names then but those men? They were heroes..”
The next sip of Nate’s drink tasted sour. The idea, the image of a bright eyed, young, Eliot the patriotic hero and soldier overlaying with the soldier of fortune he’d become.
“When did you see him the second time?” Nate asked. “Was it after…” He trailed off, suddenly very aware of how little he knew about Eliot’s history.
“Well that…” Flores answered, motioning for the waitress to bring them new drinks. “Is a bit of a longer story.”
oOo
It had been years since the kidnapping.
He was still trying to get used to the title General. It had felt premature. Like he’d been given the promotion for just being kidnapped. Of course every other promotion had felt premature as well. His wife still teased him for being unable to accept that he’d come home from the wars a hero.
He loved her for teasing him about it despite the nights he woke them both because his dreams had become nightmares about the real heroes who had never come home to the welcome they deserved. She could still light his life, give him some sense of sanity to cling to like he had when he’d first come home. Her soft jokes and the gentleness behind her laughter had eased him back away from the dark place.
She was teasing him that morning, pouring him his coffee, joking about how he needed to spend less time working and more time sleeping or he’d never go back to drinking tea. He’d joked that he was just supporting San Lorenzo’s independence when there was a knock from the door.
They were at their townhouse in the capitol city. The country had been so stable since the end of the war, no incidents other than the kidnapping, that they didn’t even have a single body guard in the house.
There was no need.
It didn’t stop him from silently sending his wife upstairs, with the understanding she’d be ready to flee with their son should it be trouble.
He hadn’t been expecting visitors and there was the beginnings of unrest in the capital.
He didn’t know what to make of the figure he found waiting, leaning against the railing of the front stairs. He was young, mid-twenties at most, thin, and dressed in dark and dirty clothing. His hair was dark blonde and dirty as the rest of him, beginning to grow out of a crew cut. He held his ribs as if they were hurting, dark circles etched under his eyes, his eyes…
“Who are you?” he asked, the words echoing in his head. Somehow he already knew. Recognizing not the presence but an absence…
The light he remembered had gone out in the eyes that met his, split and chewed and shaking lips forming the words. “Well… I’d be what’s left of the Calvary.” The boy’s voice broke and he pitched forward.
By the time Flores caught the boy he was unconscious.
“Maria!” he called behind him into the house for his wife. “Come, help me.”
He heard her feet on the stairs as he tried to carefully pull the boy into the house. Maria’s hands entered his vision, helping ease the boy onto the floor of the front room, afraid to move him further until they knew how badly he was hurt.
“Who is he?” Maria asked, moving to undo the button of his shirt to check for injuries.
“I don’t know his name,” Flores admitted. “But he was one of the team who rescued me three years ago.”
“Why is he he-“ She gasped, her hand coming away from his shirt red, opening it showed white-turned red bandages across too pale skin. A set of dog-tags hidden by his shirt until now rested against his chest.
“Call Marco, then get me the first aid kit,” Flores said, carefully removing the bled-through bandages to check the injuries, carefully easing off the dog-tags and pocketing them. If this ‘Eliot Spencer’ wanted his identity known he’d have gone to a hospital.
“Father?” Matthias asked from the stairs.
“Go back upstairs,” he answered, trying to sound gentle. He didn’t need his eight year old son to see this boy, or watch him bleed out.
Maria appeared, bringing him the first aid kit, shuffling Matthias back upstairs. “Marco’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Some days Flores loved living in a tiny city.
He was still trying to stabilize the boy when Marco arrived. An old field surgeon, he was the best person to call for these sorts of injuries.
It was afternoon before they had Spencer resting comfortably on a cot in the study, with nothing more anyone could do but wait for him to wake up.
“Most of his injuries look about a month old.” Marco explained as they washed up and attempted to clean the blood off the floor. “Two gun shots, knife wounds, abrasions, broken rib, shrapnel damage that got infected. Looks like he took care of it himself, if you can call doing just enough first aid on yourself to keep going taking care of anything. It’s a wonder he made it this far alive,” Marco shook his head but gave Flores a smile. “He’s a fighter, like someone else I know.”
“I owe you another debt for this,” Flores conceded.
Marco waved it off and got to his feet. “I’ll collect it someday.”
It was another two days before the boy was awake and lucid for longer than a few moments.
Another day more passed before Flores decided he was strong enough to answer a few questions.
Eliot Spencer was the assistant detachment commander of his Seal Team, though that was a change from when they’d first met. His team had specialized in personnel retrievals like the mission they’d met on.
He was the only one of his team still alive.
It was a little longer before Eliot would tell how he ended up in San Lorenzo, at his doorstep.
Flores didn’t press. He recognized the look, knew the story would have to wait, knew Eliot needed to be drawn back out from that dark place until his wounds healed.
Maria just laughed when he told her Eliot would be staying for a while. She said she’d known that from the moment she helped bring him into the house.
Days passed and routine returned. Eliot slowly regained his strength, trying to repay their hospitality by helping around the house. Maria started teaching him how to cook. Despite initial nervousness Eliot and Matthias eventually got comfortable around each other and not long later Matthias had taken to Eliot like the older brother he’d never have. They played games and Eliot helped Matthias with his lessons. When Eliot was strong enough they started taking walks to the park together.
It was almost a month before Eliot slipped into his office after Matthias went to bed. He stood at attention awkwardly and addressed him as General.
“Ready to make your report then?” Flores asked, somewhere between amused and concerned. It made sense a little, reporting formally would give Eliot some emotional distance. Enough to get through it at least. There was no point trying to tell Eliot it could wait longer. He knew the young man well enough by now to know that if he was here then Eliot had decided it couldn’t wait.
“Yes sir,” he said. “I was sent with my team to recover a UN emissary. We made entry only to discover there was no emissary.” He paused, taking a breath, letting it back out. “There was no emissary. It wasn’t bad intel. It was a trap. The year before we’d done a few jobs with questionable goals. We were trained not to question orders but some of us were looking into it. Apparently the higher ups in charge decided…” He swallowed. “Decided that it was better if they tied up our loose ends. I barely made it out of that hell hole alive. I know no one else on my team did. I went to ground. Used my contacts to find out what was going on. I was told all evidence my team existed had been wiped out. I had a couple fake passports, weapons, and some cash at a supply cache my team used but… I needed a place to hole up.”
“You chose here?” Flores asked, not able to process the rest. Not yet.
“It was closest. I couldn’t go back home and it had been a few years. I figured no one would look for me here,” He let out a breath. “and… I thought I could trust you. I read about you in the war. Read what you did, what you’ve done since. If I didn’t find somewhere safe I’d die so I figured… it was worth a shot.”
Flores sighed. The man in front of him was still wrung out, exhausted, the hint of light returning had disappeared again behind the haze of memories and loss.
Eliot was healing. But it would be a long time before something like that could be overcome.
“I’m glad you came here,” Flores said. “And you are welcome to stay as long as you need. When you are well I am sure I can find you a job. If you cannot return to your home then, perhaps, you can make a new one here. I am sure Matthias and Maria would not mind having you stay nearby.” He stood up, walking over to the young man who’d saved his life those years ago, who he was finally getting to know, who he wanted to believe could once again become the hero he had been. “I would like that as well.”
Eliot nodded, head falling forward as he let out a breath. Flores put a hand on his shoulder and a moment later felt a shudder rack the young man’s frame. Eliot took a sharp breath, gasping in, trying to pull back in his control.
Then it shattered entirely. His head dropped forward, relief and grief and anger mixing together into stifled sobs.
And Flores waited, one hand on the man’s shoulder, standing guard as Eliot finally let himself stop running and break down.
oOo
A year passed. Eliot grew strong. He moved out of the house into a little place of his own but still close by enough that he practically still lived with them. When he was healed fully Flores got him a job for the security forces, training the San-Lorenzo national guard. He proved to be a stern but good teacher who quickly earned the respect of the men he taught and served with.
There were still rough patches and Eliot was starting to drink more and more but Flores knew things with the former soldier would get worse before they got better. But they would get better. It took time to heal from the loss Eliot had been handed.
But Flores had been there, had been led out of it by Maria and his mentors and the men he served with. He was sure in time Eliot would find his own way.
Maybe it was because Flores had been a child of the revolution, had grown up while his country fought for and gained it’s independence, surrounded by national heroes only to eventually become one, but in those days Flores believed the world was good enough that heroes died heroes. They didn’t fall or fade away forever. They just were challenged and became stronger or died for their cause.
Maybe in a better world he would have been right.
But the world was changing and San Lorenzo was changing.
It was a little more than a year after Eliot’s arrival that the head of immigration security was murdered and his second in command Robera took his position.
Two months later Robera was promoted under suspicious circumstances.
Within a month there was another murder within the cabinet and Robera was promoted into the vacancy.
That was around the time Eliot brought it to his attention. He slipped into Flores’s study late one night, outlining the activity, filling in details and gossip and things Eliot had heard. Eliot had become a fixture in official buildings. Three months before he’d been given a promotion to the assistant head of security. When he wasn’t needed to fill in for the head of security Eliot did checks on official building’s security. Most were more than used to the sight of him wandering about unchecked, tapping at windows, counting people as they passed through a space, or examining ventilation shafts for points of entry.
He’d heard talk, whispers, rumors. Robera was going to make a run for the presidency. Robera was moving up quickly. He was greasing palms with money that no minor officer should have been able to afford.
But Eliot was paranoid. His opinion of bureaucracy was no secret. His world had been destroyed by corruption and Flores knew it was only logical for him to see conspiracies lurking behind typical movement of politics.
Flores knew there was no reason to respond to Eliot’s rambling theories about how “Someone” was paving the way for Robera’s political success for “some reason” and that they needed to do “something” before it was “too late” with anything more than quiet reminders to Eliot that he had every right to be paranoid but that didn’t mean people were actually out to get him. This was San Lorenzo. Not the United States.
Eliot got angry, frustrated, said he’d bring Flores more evidence.
For two weeks newspaper clippings, notes, and a few files that were probably classified found their way onto his desk.
The night Robera announced his candidacy for president Eliot showed up in his study again.
“Eliot this has to stop,” Flores said before Eliot could start in again. “You’re abusing your position to get this information, stirring up discontent. And what happens if Robera wins? You have a good life. You can have a good life here. But you need to stop seeing ghosts and monsters where there are none. Eliot… I know what happened. But it will not happen here.”
Eliot gritted his teeth and took a small notebook out of his bag, quickly jotting down something on it. “Here is a list of ten names,” he said simply. “If they’re still alive by the time Robera takes office I’ll agree that I’m paranoid.”
“El-“
Eliot put the note on his desk, looking up, blue eyes desperate. “Please. Believe me now. Put security details on these people. Don’t wait until they’re dead. It’ll be too late.”
For the rest of his life Flores would regret that his next words had been; “Eliot, you need help.”
The young man turned, slipping out of the study, slipping out of the house.
He didn’t come back.
Flores predicted that it would only take a week or two for Eliot’s temper to cool and for his loneliness and missing Matthias and Maria to overcome his anger at Flores. “He’ll come home when he gets hungry,” Maria kept saying. They could mend bridges then.
Only three weeks passed and the newspaper waiting for him on his desk at work had an article about the death of one of the people on the list.
He checked, and discovered two others on the list were already dead. Accidental deaths.
A future candidate, a reporter, a major backer who preferred to play a more behind the scenes role.
He tried to find Eliot but the man had resigned his job hours before and was gone. His house was empty.
Eliot had gone to ground and Flores knew Eliot well enough to know he would only be found when he wanted to be.
The next three months saw the deaths of the rest of the people on the list. The conspiracy once only visible to a paranoid ex-soldier became obvious and then became the elephant in the corner, the thing no one talked about because more people were disappearing every day.
Flores sent Matthias to a boarding school in England and tried to convince Maria to go stay with her family in London. He was preparing to go to war, to try to turn a tide he already knew he was too late to stop…
The night before the official election Eliot appeared again in his study. The five months since their argument had changed him. The last hints of a young man were gone. The last traces of the hero who had rescued Flores were gone from his eyes. He looked tired and angry and just…
There was defeat there in his dark eyes.
“Tomorrow Robera will become President Robera,” he stated. “Though we might as well say this country’s president is Damian Moreau.”
Flores had learned that name in the past few months. Moreau was an arms dealer, drug runner, international man of many skills who was becoming a bigger and bigger force for everything that was evil in the world.
And he’d chosen San Lorenzo as the country to make his own personal safe-house.
And it was far too late to stop.
“Eliot. I am sorry,” Flores said. “I should have listened. But we can still-“
“Still what?” Eliot asked, his voice harsh, sharp, broken to pieces like glass and cutting. “Try? Still take back the country? How? Moreau owns the news, the tv, the radio, the guns, the government. When the next election comes he’ll have dug in so deep we’ll never get him out.”
“So you’re ready to give up?” Flores asked. He knew that would get Eliot riled.
Eliot just shrugged. “Seems the thing to do.”
Flores didn’t even know how to begin…
“He offered me work,” Eliot said.
“Who offered you work?” Flores asked, unable to believe the answer he knew was coming.
Eliot gave the faintest hint of a smile. “Moreau. Said he liked the work I’ve been doing. Thought I could be an asset.”
“And you’d work for someone like that?” Flores asked. “After these past few-“
“Yeah,” Eliot cut him off. “Because these past few years have gone so well. I fought the good fight, tried to, and it got my team killed by the people giving us our orders. I came here, thought I’d found some place where there was still… good. And I just watched everything good about it get burned down. This is all there is in the world. The strong take what they want and the wolves eat what’s left and no one…” He stopped talking and turned away.
Flores wasn’t sure if it was to hide despair or rage or tears. It could have been any or all three.
“Damien told me if I work for him I won’t… I won’t have to worry about good or bad or right or wrong or whatever. Just… follow orders. Do a job. Get paid. Stay alive. Keep fighting. Simple. Easy. No more of this…” He gave a halfhearted gesture with his hand. “I protected my country. I tried to protect yours. And I failed both. I give up. The world can burn itself down for all I care. At least with Damien it’ll stop taking me with it.”
Flores reached for Eliot, reached for something to say. He had told himself Eliot was getting better but had he just missed this despair lingering under the surface? This couldn’t have just happened. There had to be some way to… Eliot couldn’t go to work for that monster. “Eliot, wait.”
There was nothing left of the boy who’d rescued him, of the man he’d rescued, in the person who turned back to glare at him.
“Don’t,” Eliot said. “Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. I tried. I asked you for your help. I begged you for it. You did nothing. No one ever does anything. Thank you for your hospitality but I’m done asking for help.”
“Eliot you go to work for that monster and we’re done,” Flores said, recoiling from the apathy twisting and burning into anger behind those eyes. “You’ll never be welcome here again. You’ll never be anything to me again.”
Eliot looked at him, lips twisting into a bitter, violent, smile. “Alright.” He turned away and left.
The front door slammed a moment later and Maria appeared in the doorway.
“Was that Eliot?” she asked, looking back toward the hall. “Did he finally come home?”
Flores shook his head. “No,” he said, looking down at the dog tags he’d had in his desk for the past year. “Eliot Spencer died tonight.”
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: gen,Elio and Nate centric
Verse: N/a
Fandom: Leverage
Summary: The night before the Leverage team leaves San Lorenzo General Flores tells Nate about his history with Eliot.
Notes: Written for Ziplocless who won my Help_Japan auction.
Many thanks and much praise to my ever patient beta LMX_V3Point3.
Major spoilers to the season 3 finale.
Title comes from the song Sound the Bugle.
Nate hadn’t been looking for Eliot, or anyone else for that matter. Sophie was upstairs, doing whatever Sophie did when she declared she needed “Me” time. She’d been doing it after every job since she got back, so Nate hadn’t questioned it. He’d just headed down to the hotel bar to wait the next couple of hours before continuing their friendly drinks.
He hadn’t expected to see anyone.
But before he'd even entered the bar he’d found something of note. There were enough security men hanging around that it had to be either the new president or one of the higher ranking staff. Someone who’d learned to be paranoid and who could now slowly learn not to be.
That felt almost as good as a drink.
He walked into the bar and glanced around, checking to see who had wandered into their hotel and if he should be on guard.
He really shouldn’t have been half as surprised as he was to find Eliot and General Floressitting in a booth, drinking, talking. There was laughter between them but there was also tension. Not as much as before. Not the warmth with subtext of something heavy.
But there was still a hint, one of the shadows still clinging to Eliot.
Sometimes Nate wondered if they’d ever see Eliot free of shadows. Though this business with Moreau was giving him the rather unpleasant feeling he and Eliot had at least one thing in common.
They didn’t want to be free. For all they kept you awake at night there was something about them that…
Nate knew Eliot well enough by now to know it was those things clinging to the hitter that drove his endless self control and discipline and effort to be the good guy, the honorable guy.
And it had become a part of who he was.
He needed a drink.
But then as if he’d felt Nate’s eyes on him (the bastard probably had) Eliot looked up and caught him staring. He looked back to Flores, finished his drink in one long gulp and got up to leave, passing wordlessly by Nate.
Flores turned, watching Nate with appraising eyes. Nate almost wondered if… but no. There was the same warmth as always but no heat.
“Mister Ford,” Flores called to him. “Come. Have a drink with me.”
Curious, Nate walked close enough they could have a conversation without shouting, though he didn’t sit down. “There was a time when my people would celebrate this sort of victory with bonfires and story-telling about our county’s heroes.” He gave a dry smile and took another drink, something far away in his eyes.
Nate sat down. He knew Flores’s type. The General wouldn’t have mentioned it without reason. “So tell me a story,” he said, motioning for the waitress to bring him his usual. “How did Eliot save your life?”
Flores gave him a long, calculating look that had the weight of something so familiar.
Then he smiled and relaxed back into the booth, the strict posture of his military rank easing out. “I met Spencer fourteen years ago. I was working the security detail of one of my countries dignitaries, who was working to secure a peace treaty with one of our neighbors. We had not anticipated a fight and we had not been aware of the unrest in the neighboring countries. We were ambushed, many good men lost their lives to protect our ambassador.” He shook his head at the memory. “But we were overpowered and taken.”
The waitress brought Nate’s drink and he took a sip, motioning for Flores to continue.
“I do not know what our captors had planed for the eight of us they held, but it quickly became obvious they were not getting what they wanted. They became agitated as days passed. Our treatment grew worse.” His voice didn’t hint to any emotion at the memory, though Nate did notice his grip on his glass tightened.
Suddenly Flores smiled, something far away in his eyes. “Twenty-three years old. Bright eyes… The stuff of heroes…”
oOo
“What was that?” Flores asked the darkness, forcing his arms to push him into a sitting position. Two weeks of little food, bad conditions, and increasing abuse had left most of them weaker than any of the soldiers liked to admit. His cell mate was asleep, not stirring at the question, and Flores felt a moment of irrational fear that the man was dead.
Another muffled clang and a shout.
“Did anyone else hear that?” There were no lights on in their prison. It was the middle of the night. But the bared doors to their cells meant they could at least communicate.
“Fighting,” Sergeant Hawkins said from the next cell over. “Conrad! Wake up!” A grunt and the startled sound of the man awakening. “Wake up the ambassador."
Flores turned to his cell mate, the first hints of adrenalin helping ease out the feeling of lead in his limbs, trying to nudge the man awake, feeling the unnatural heat of a fever.
The door to their prison eased open, bright light flooding in, all but blinding them. Flores fought to see, a figure stood haloed by the light.
Then he was moving towards their cell. “Who are you?” Flores asked.
His eyes finally started to adjust to the light in time to meet the eyes of the boy (just a boy, not much older than twenty at most) as he smiled, his blue eyes so very bright as he said. “Well sir, we’d be the Calvary.”
oOo
“He led us out of there while the rest of his team cleared the way. Fifty feet from the exit one of the enemy reached us. Put a gun to my head. Spencer took him down with a single shot. Said his team never lost a retrieval, he wasn’t about to start.” There was something bitter in those words. “He led us to the pickup location and twenty-four hours later we were receiving a hero’s welcome in San Lorenzo. The Americans who had rescued us had left our company as soon as we were safe. The man who saved us told me they didn’t do what they did for the parades.” He sighed. “I remember thinking how bright his eyes were when he said it. I did not know their names then but those men? They were heroes..”
The next sip of Nate’s drink tasted sour. The idea, the image of a bright eyed, young, Eliot the patriotic hero and soldier overlaying with the soldier of fortune he’d become.
“When did you see him the second time?” Nate asked. “Was it after…” He trailed off, suddenly very aware of how little he knew about Eliot’s history.
“Well that…” Flores answered, motioning for the waitress to bring them new drinks. “Is a bit of a longer story.”
oOo
It had been years since the kidnapping.
He was still trying to get used to the title General. It had felt premature. Like he’d been given the promotion for just being kidnapped. Of course every other promotion had felt premature as well. His wife still teased him for being unable to accept that he’d come home from the wars a hero.
He loved her for teasing him about it despite the nights he woke them both because his dreams had become nightmares about the real heroes who had never come home to the welcome they deserved. She could still light his life, give him some sense of sanity to cling to like he had when he’d first come home. Her soft jokes and the gentleness behind her laughter had eased him back away from the dark place.
She was teasing him that morning, pouring him his coffee, joking about how he needed to spend less time working and more time sleeping or he’d never go back to drinking tea. He’d joked that he was just supporting San Lorenzo’s independence when there was a knock from the door.
They were at their townhouse in the capitol city. The country had been so stable since the end of the war, no incidents other than the kidnapping, that they didn’t even have a single body guard in the house.
There was no need.
It didn’t stop him from silently sending his wife upstairs, with the understanding she’d be ready to flee with their son should it be trouble.
He hadn’t been expecting visitors and there was the beginnings of unrest in the capital.
He didn’t know what to make of the figure he found waiting, leaning against the railing of the front stairs. He was young, mid-twenties at most, thin, and dressed in dark and dirty clothing. His hair was dark blonde and dirty as the rest of him, beginning to grow out of a crew cut. He held his ribs as if they were hurting, dark circles etched under his eyes, his eyes…
“Who are you?” he asked, the words echoing in his head. Somehow he already knew. Recognizing not the presence but an absence…
The light he remembered had gone out in the eyes that met his, split and chewed and shaking lips forming the words. “Well… I’d be what’s left of the Calvary.” The boy’s voice broke and he pitched forward.
By the time Flores caught the boy he was unconscious.
“Maria!” he called behind him into the house for his wife. “Come, help me.”
He heard her feet on the stairs as he tried to carefully pull the boy into the house. Maria’s hands entered his vision, helping ease the boy onto the floor of the front room, afraid to move him further until they knew how badly he was hurt.
“Who is he?” Maria asked, moving to undo the button of his shirt to check for injuries.
“I don’t know his name,” Flores admitted. “But he was one of the team who rescued me three years ago.”
“Why is he he-“ She gasped, her hand coming away from his shirt red, opening it showed white-turned red bandages across too pale skin. A set of dog-tags hidden by his shirt until now rested against his chest.
“Call Marco, then get me the first aid kit,” Flores said, carefully removing the bled-through bandages to check the injuries, carefully easing off the dog-tags and pocketing them. If this ‘Eliot Spencer’ wanted his identity known he’d have gone to a hospital.
“Father?” Matthias asked from the stairs.
“Go back upstairs,” he answered, trying to sound gentle. He didn’t need his eight year old son to see this boy, or watch him bleed out.
Maria appeared, bringing him the first aid kit, shuffling Matthias back upstairs. “Marco’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Some days Flores loved living in a tiny city.
He was still trying to stabilize the boy when Marco arrived. An old field surgeon, he was the best person to call for these sorts of injuries.
It was afternoon before they had Spencer resting comfortably on a cot in the study, with nothing more anyone could do but wait for him to wake up.
“Most of his injuries look about a month old.” Marco explained as they washed up and attempted to clean the blood off the floor. “Two gun shots, knife wounds, abrasions, broken rib, shrapnel damage that got infected. Looks like he took care of it himself, if you can call doing just enough first aid on yourself to keep going taking care of anything. It’s a wonder he made it this far alive,” Marco shook his head but gave Flores a smile. “He’s a fighter, like someone else I know.”
“I owe you another debt for this,” Flores conceded.
Marco waved it off and got to his feet. “I’ll collect it someday.”
It was another two days before the boy was awake and lucid for longer than a few moments.
Another day more passed before Flores decided he was strong enough to answer a few questions.
Eliot Spencer was the assistant detachment commander of his Seal Team, though that was a change from when they’d first met. His team had specialized in personnel retrievals like the mission they’d met on.
He was the only one of his team still alive.
It was a little longer before Eliot would tell how he ended up in San Lorenzo, at his doorstep.
Flores didn’t press. He recognized the look, knew the story would have to wait, knew Eliot needed to be drawn back out from that dark place until his wounds healed.
Maria just laughed when he told her Eliot would be staying for a while. She said she’d known that from the moment she helped bring him into the house.
Days passed and routine returned. Eliot slowly regained his strength, trying to repay their hospitality by helping around the house. Maria started teaching him how to cook. Despite initial nervousness Eliot and Matthias eventually got comfortable around each other and not long later Matthias had taken to Eliot like the older brother he’d never have. They played games and Eliot helped Matthias with his lessons. When Eliot was strong enough they started taking walks to the park together.
It was almost a month before Eliot slipped into his office after Matthias went to bed. He stood at attention awkwardly and addressed him as General.
“Ready to make your report then?” Flores asked, somewhere between amused and concerned. It made sense a little, reporting formally would give Eliot some emotional distance. Enough to get through it at least. There was no point trying to tell Eliot it could wait longer. He knew the young man well enough by now to know that if he was here then Eliot had decided it couldn’t wait.
“Yes sir,” he said. “I was sent with my team to recover a UN emissary. We made entry only to discover there was no emissary.” He paused, taking a breath, letting it back out. “There was no emissary. It wasn’t bad intel. It was a trap. The year before we’d done a few jobs with questionable goals. We were trained not to question orders but some of us were looking into it. Apparently the higher ups in charge decided…” He swallowed. “Decided that it was better if they tied up our loose ends. I barely made it out of that hell hole alive. I know no one else on my team did. I went to ground. Used my contacts to find out what was going on. I was told all evidence my team existed had been wiped out. I had a couple fake passports, weapons, and some cash at a supply cache my team used but… I needed a place to hole up.”
“You chose here?” Flores asked, not able to process the rest. Not yet.
“It was closest. I couldn’t go back home and it had been a few years. I figured no one would look for me here,” He let out a breath. “and… I thought I could trust you. I read about you in the war. Read what you did, what you’ve done since. If I didn’t find somewhere safe I’d die so I figured… it was worth a shot.”
Flores sighed. The man in front of him was still wrung out, exhausted, the hint of light returning had disappeared again behind the haze of memories and loss.
Eliot was healing. But it would be a long time before something like that could be overcome.
“I’m glad you came here,” Flores said. “And you are welcome to stay as long as you need. When you are well I am sure I can find you a job. If you cannot return to your home then, perhaps, you can make a new one here. I am sure Matthias and Maria would not mind having you stay nearby.” He stood up, walking over to the young man who’d saved his life those years ago, who he was finally getting to know, who he wanted to believe could once again become the hero he had been. “I would like that as well.”
Eliot nodded, head falling forward as he let out a breath. Flores put a hand on his shoulder and a moment later felt a shudder rack the young man’s frame. Eliot took a sharp breath, gasping in, trying to pull back in his control.
Then it shattered entirely. His head dropped forward, relief and grief and anger mixing together into stifled sobs.
And Flores waited, one hand on the man’s shoulder, standing guard as Eliot finally let himself stop running and break down.
oOo
A year passed. Eliot grew strong. He moved out of the house into a little place of his own but still close by enough that he practically still lived with them. When he was healed fully Flores got him a job for the security forces, training the San-Lorenzo national guard. He proved to be a stern but good teacher who quickly earned the respect of the men he taught and served with.
There were still rough patches and Eliot was starting to drink more and more but Flores knew things with the former soldier would get worse before they got better. But they would get better. It took time to heal from the loss Eliot had been handed.
But Flores had been there, had been led out of it by Maria and his mentors and the men he served with. He was sure in time Eliot would find his own way.
Maybe it was because Flores had been a child of the revolution, had grown up while his country fought for and gained it’s independence, surrounded by national heroes only to eventually become one, but in those days Flores believed the world was good enough that heroes died heroes. They didn’t fall or fade away forever. They just were challenged and became stronger or died for their cause.
Maybe in a better world he would have been right.
But the world was changing and San Lorenzo was changing.
It was a little more than a year after Eliot’s arrival that the head of immigration security was murdered and his second in command Robera took his position.
Two months later Robera was promoted under suspicious circumstances.
Within a month there was another murder within the cabinet and Robera was promoted into the vacancy.
That was around the time Eliot brought it to his attention. He slipped into Flores’s study late one night, outlining the activity, filling in details and gossip and things Eliot had heard. Eliot had become a fixture in official buildings. Three months before he’d been given a promotion to the assistant head of security. When he wasn’t needed to fill in for the head of security Eliot did checks on official building’s security. Most were more than used to the sight of him wandering about unchecked, tapping at windows, counting people as they passed through a space, or examining ventilation shafts for points of entry.
He’d heard talk, whispers, rumors. Robera was going to make a run for the presidency. Robera was moving up quickly. He was greasing palms with money that no minor officer should have been able to afford.
But Eliot was paranoid. His opinion of bureaucracy was no secret. His world had been destroyed by corruption and Flores knew it was only logical for him to see conspiracies lurking behind typical movement of politics.
Flores knew there was no reason to respond to Eliot’s rambling theories about how “Someone” was paving the way for Robera’s political success for “some reason” and that they needed to do “something” before it was “too late” with anything more than quiet reminders to Eliot that he had every right to be paranoid but that didn’t mean people were actually out to get him. This was San Lorenzo. Not the United States.
Eliot got angry, frustrated, said he’d bring Flores more evidence.
For two weeks newspaper clippings, notes, and a few files that were probably classified found their way onto his desk.
The night Robera announced his candidacy for president Eliot showed up in his study again.
“Eliot this has to stop,” Flores said before Eliot could start in again. “You’re abusing your position to get this information, stirring up discontent. And what happens if Robera wins? You have a good life. You can have a good life here. But you need to stop seeing ghosts and monsters where there are none. Eliot… I know what happened. But it will not happen here.”
Eliot gritted his teeth and took a small notebook out of his bag, quickly jotting down something on it. “Here is a list of ten names,” he said simply. “If they’re still alive by the time Robera takes office I’ll agree that I’m paranoid.”
“El-“
Eliot put the note on his desk, looking up, blue eyes desperate. “Please. Believe me now. Put security details on these people. Don’t wait until they’re dead. It’ll be too late.”
For the rest of his life Flores would regret that his next words had been; “Eliot, you need help.”
The young man turned, slipping out of the study, slipping out of the house.
He didn’t come back.
Flores predicted that it would only take a week or two for Eliot’s temper to cool and for his loneliness and missing Matthias and Maria to overcome his anger at Flores. “He’ll come home when he gets hungry,” Maria kept saying. They could mend bridges then.
Only three weeks passed and the newspaper waiting for him on his desk at work had an article about the death of one of the people on the list.
He checked, and discovered two others on the list were already dead. Accidental deaths.
A future candidate, a reporter, a major backer who preferred to play a more behind the scenes role.
He tried to find Eliot but the man had resigned his job hours before and was gone. His house was empty.
Eliot had gone to ground and Flores knew Eliot well enough to know he would only be found when he wanted to be.
The next three months saw the deaths of the rest of the people on the list. The conspiracy once only visible to a paranoid ex-soldier became obvious and then became the elephant in the corner, the thing no one talked about because more people were disappearing every day.
Flores sent Matthias to a boarding school in England and tried to convince Maria to go stay with her family in London. He was preparing to go to war, to try to turn a tide he already knew he was too late to stop…
The night before the official election Eliot appeared again in his study. The five months since their argument had changed him. The last hints of a young man were gone. The last traces of the hero who had rescued Flores were gone from his eyes. He looked tired and angry and just…
There was defeat there in his dark eyes.
“Tomorrow Robera will become President Robera,” he stated. “Though we might as well say this country’s president is Damian Moreau.”
Flores had learned that name in the past few months. Moreau was an arms dealer, drug runner, international man of many skills who was becoming a bigger and bigger force for everything that was evil in the world.
And he’d chosen San Lorenzo as the country to make his own personal safe-house.
And it was far too late to stop.
“Eliot. I am sorry,” Flores said. “I should have listened. But we can still-“
“Still what?” Eliot asked, his voice harsh, sharp, broken to pieces like glass and cutting. “Try? Still take back the country? How? Moreau owns the news, the tv, the radio, the guns, the government. When the next election comes he’ll have dug in so deep we’ll never get him out.”
“So you’re ready to give up?” Flores asked. He knew that would get Eliot riled.
Eliot just shrugged. “Seems the thing to do.”
Flores didn’t even know how to begin…
“He offered me work,” Eliot said.
“Who offered you work?” Flores asked, unable to believe the answer he knew was coming.
Eliot gave the faintest hint of a smile. “Moreau. Said he liked the work I’ve been doing. Thought I could be an asset.”
“And you’d work for someone like that?” Flores asked. “After these past few-“
“Yeah,” Eliot cut him off. “Because these past few years have gone so well. I fought the good fight, tried to, and it got my team killed by the people giving us our orders. I came here, thought I’d found some place where there was still… good. And I just watched everything good about it get burned down. This is all there is in the world. The strong take what they want and the wolves eat what’s left and no one…” He stopped talking and turned away.
Flores wasn’t sure if it was to hide despair or rage or tears. It could have been any or all three.
“Damien told me if I work for him I won’t… I won’t have to worry about good or bad or right or wrong or whatever. Just… follow orders. Do a job. Get paid. Stay alive. Keep fighting. Simple. Easy. No more of this…” He gave a halfhearted gesture with his hand. “I protected my country. I tried to protect yours. And I failed both. I give up. The world can burn itself down for all I care. At least with Damien it’ll stop taking me with it.”
Flores reached for Eliot, reached for something to say. He had told himself Eliot was getting better but had he just missed this despair lingering under the surface? This couldn’t have just happened. There had to be some way to… Eliot couldn’t go to work for that monster. “Eliot, wait.”
There was nothing left of the boy who’d rescued him, of the man he’d rescued, in the person who turned back to glare at him.
“Don’t,” Eliot said. “Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. I tried. I asked you for your help. I begged you for it. You did nothing. No one ever does anything. Thank you for your hospitality but I’m done asking for help.”
“Eliot you go to work for that monster and we’re done,” Flores said, recoiling from the apathy twisting and burning into anger behind those eyes. “You’ll never be welcome here again. You’ll never be anything to me again.”
Eliot looked at him, lips twisting into a bitter, violent, smile. “Alright.” He turned away and left.
The front door slammed a moment later and Maria appeared in the doorway.
“Was that Eliot?” she asked, looking back toward the hall. “Did he finally come home?”
Flores shook his head. “No,” he said, looking down at the dog tags he’d had in his desk for the past year. “Eliot Spencer died tonight.”