Title: Never This
Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage or its characters and I make no profit from this. It's just for fun.
Spoilers: None unless you have absolutely no idea who the characters are or what they do (the job I mention here is fictional).
Pairing: Nate/Parker
Author's note: Okay, so this is the first fan fiction I've posted on this site, because I can't get Nate/Parker out of my head and there is nothing about them anywhere to be found. Which leads me to wonder, am I the only one who thinks they'd be great together? Or am I completely alone out here? I appreciate any reviews and hope you like it whether you're a fan of the pairing or not.
XXXXXXXXXXX
She had seen many sunsets in her life, most of them beautiful, a handful breathtaking. Never before had one seemed to symbolically fit her life so perfectly, though. She knew this was the last sunset she'd be watching from the top of this building. The last sunset she would see while part of the team of which she (now regrettably) allowed herself to become a part. The sun was currently a glowing, red sphere on the horizon; once it disappeared, so too would she.
Nate had called an emergency meeting which started 15 minutes ago. And that was why she was sitting on the roof of their headquarters instead of inside with everyone else.
Parker knew what they were going to say and she deserved every harsh word, every accusation. She screwed up badly, made a mistake she shouldn't have made and cost them their latest job. Because of her, everything had failed spectacularly. Their target, Linden, had gotten away. Their client had been denied the justice she deserved. Now Parker's position with Nate's team was in jeopardy. Or rather, she thought with a sense of despair, it was already lost. She had no excuses. They had every right – every obligation, actually – to get rid of her now.
Could anyone blame her for refusing to face it, though? She knew they were inside at this very moment, probably debating on who would come give her the bad news. She had skipped the meeting because she didn't want to see it happen. Just because she expected it didn't mean she had come to accept it. It didn't make the thought of it hurt any less, either. She didn't want to sit in her chair for the last time and wait for the guillotine to come crashing down. They could kick her out whether she was in the room or not.
Parker had faced many such scenarios in her life. She knew every variation of the things people said when they didn't want you anymore. Get lost. Things aren't working out. We can't handle you anymore. The last had come after another school fight, when her foster parents of 4 months (a record at the time) had shipped her back to social services. That one had particularly hurt because she had only just been allowing herself to feel she belonged.
In any event, people had told her to leave more times than she could count. So eventually she started leaving before they could tell her to. Never again, she swore to herself – never again would she let herself be hurt. Because it wasn't anyone else's fault but her own. She should know to stay at a distance. It wasn't other people's fault if she let them get close to her, it was her own. She knew she would eventually let them down. Hurt them. Disappoint them. Give them good cause to hate her.
Before the mistake that ruined their last con, she'd made two far more crucial mistakes. The first was letting herself get attached to this team. The second was not leaving the minute she'd recognized this fact.
Nate, Eliot, Hardison, Sophie…in the beginning she tried to remain unattached, she really did, but they pulled her in against her will. They acted like they wanted her there. It was such a unique feeling that she didn't know how to accept it.
She tried to break free of them, oh how she tried. She nearly succeeded, too. About eight months ago she left in the middle of the night. She didn't tell anyone she was leaving because if she had, she wouldn't have been able to do it. To her immense surprise, they had looked for her. They found her, too, after only 8 days. "You're good, but I'm better," Hardison had smirked at her.
She still remembered the feelings she'd been flooded with that day when they confronted her in Miami. The relief and guilt. The irritation that Hardison had bested her (she took pride in her work after all) and the shock that they cared that much. Mostly she remembered the overwhelming happiness and how they'd implored her to please never do that to them again. She still remembered Sophie's tears. Remembered how Hardison gloated to cover his worry and Eliot's simple declaration ("Do that again and I'll kill you"). Above all else, she remembered Nate's anger that he'd tried to hide from her until she had provoked him into a screaming match which ended when she abruptly hugged him and told him she had missed him, too.
Parker wrapped her arms around her legs, trying to keep warm as the setting sun took the day's heat along with it. This was her own fault. ("You ruin everything!" one foster mother had been fond of telling her). Parker had turned her back on the rules, thinking this time could be different because this team was different. She thought she finally found a place where she belonged, not only because of her skills and what she could give to them, but because of who she was. She had no illusions that if she hadn't been so good at her job they'd have kept her around, oh no. But she was beginning to think even if she chose to retire, they would still like her. They would like Parker, just Parker.
So what had she done? Gone and ruined it all with one horrible, split second decision that inadvertently gave them away. She didn't blame Nate for calling the meeting that would decide her fate, didn't blame them for the disappointment and frustration in their eyes whenever they looked at her. She tried to talk to them, tried to apologize, but Hardison and Eliot stormed away in anger. Sophie merely pursed her lips and shook her head, the frustration clear in her whole manner. Nate she hadn't bothered with, since he'd locked himself in his office. That had been a letdown, because she thought that he might be the one to listen to her explanation and apology. She had hoped he could get the rest to listen, too.
It wasn't fair. They'd all made mistakes in the course of their jobs. She simply had the misfortune of causing the worst outcome. Their client had to live in perpetual fear for the rest of her life that one day this man might show up again and try to exact revenge. If that happened, Parker didn't know how she would live with herself.
She thought maybe she should just vanish, that would spare her team the uncomfortable conversation where they confirmed her worst fears. This time she wouldn't have to worry about them coming after her. They'd be relieved she was gone.
Except there was one major problem. The time before it had taken every ounce of willpower to walk away. And now, at this point, she didn't know how to leave them. She didn't know how to willingly walk away from the best thing she'd ever had in her life. The only family she had ever known. It was easy to exist before this, to live only for herself, because she never knew how wonderful it could be to have other people around. Sure, she knew what it was like to have people wanting, demanding, and taking things from her; she had that her whole life in spades. But people giving her things? She'd never had this.
To leave it behind, to go the rest of her life knowing she had screwed up the one good thing she ever had, it didn't seem possible. To walk around with an aching void forever, aware that the people she loved were off somewhere far away from her, working happily together, probably having replaced her…
Were they talking about that right now? About who would take her place? They all had past contacts they could call on. Maybe whoever they chose to bring in would be even better than her. A few months from now they might all laugh about how fortuitous it was that she'd screwed up after all, because it got rid of her and made room for someone better.
The thought felt curiously as if someone had stabbed her in the heart, but when she pressed her hand where the knife should be, the unmarked skin confirmed the feeling came from inside, not out.
Her face felt unnaturally cold, and when she reached her hand up, she realized several tears had slipped from her eyes, which caused her to stop breathing for a moment in shock. She had stopped doing that at 10, as she'd been crying over a poor grade (it wouldn't be well-received at home) and her teacher coldly informed her that tears wouldn't get her anywhere in life. ("Better get tough now, kid, because life is only going to get harder.") And damn if that that teacher hadn't been more honest than any other adult she knew at the time – and a lot she'd met since then, actually.
She checked the time, saw she was now half an hour late. Maybe they thought she didn't show because she left on her own. If they thought that, were they happy about it?
"Parker." The stern voice from behind her came as a surprise. She hadn't heard him approaching. She never let herself get caught unaware, further proof of how much this situation had rattled her.
"Nate." She fought to keep her voice even and the tears out of it. He didn't need to know what this was doing to her, it wasn't fair to him. It wasn't fair to any of them to try and convince them to let her stay when they deserved someone better, someone who wouldn't cost them everything.
"We were supposed to meet 30 minutes ago. Maybe you missed the memo?" His tone could pass for light, but the undercurrent of steel told her he wasn't happy. Join the club, Nate.
He stood next to her now, but she refused to look up at him. She didn't need to see the disappointment in his eyes. She spent far too many years seeing the same look in every foster parent, every teacher, every lover who she failed in some way or another. She didn't want to see it in his eyes, too, because for some reason she couldn't name, she knew it would hurt so much more to see it from him.
"Why didn't you show up?" He asked slowly, the anger rising in his voice, "If you'd bothered then you'd already know that –"
He cut off when she stood abruptly, crossing her arms to ensure he couldn't see the way her hands shook. "You don't have to tell me." She continued staring out at the horizon, the sun more than halfway down. "I already know."
"Have you added ESP to your repertoire?" He reached out to try and turn her towards him, but she stepped away at the last moment.
Parker swallowed and strengthened her resolve, no matter how hard it was to step away from an outstretched hand. How many times in her life had she prayed for one that never came? "I'm leaving."
He waited a few moments for further explanation. None came. "Where are you going?" He was fighting to stay calm and his agitation surprised her. Shouldn't he be happy to hear they wouldn't have to deal with her anymore?
"You don't really want to know," she told him. It came out with a tinge of sadness she couldn't hide.
She had managed to not look directly at him even once, and decided it was time to leave before she caved and met his eyes. Something about being in Nate's presence – hell, even thinking about him – had always made her feel things would work out and if she felt that way now, it would make leaving so much harder. Though what was harder than impossible?
She had the roof access door halfway open before he slammed it shut over her head. "What are you doing?" He snapped from behind her.
He startled her, and she channeled the momentary fear into her anger, whirling around to face him. "I was trying to open the door which should have been obvious." She met his eyes without thinking. The smoldering fury there surprised her enough that she leaned back against the door. She knew he was upset about what she'd done, but it never occurred to her he would be this angry. For a fleeting moment she wondered if her team weren't going to take their revenge on her instead of kicking her out.
Every facet of Nate told her she was about to be hurt, from his eyes to the tenseness of his body to the fury in his voice, but she refused to flinch away from him. So she stood there and waited and thought perhaps she deserved this, too, while at the same time she refused to believe he would ever hurt her in any way. She'd been touched in anger before. She'd been shoved and hit, punched and even beaten. Angry caretakers, jealous partners, even jobs gone wrong. She knew what it meant to be on the receiving end of violence, but never, never this, because when he put his hands on her shoulders, his touch was so gentle that she felt those damnable tears again. She would not cry. She would not.
"What are you doing?" He asked again, enunciating each word, the anger still there even as he searched her eyes for an answer to a question she didn't fully understand.
"I was going to leave."
His hands came up to cup the back of her neck so carefully that she knew her own body was going to betray her no matter how much she willed herself not to cry. His right hand brushed a tear from her eye right before it fell, his left still on her neck, slightly directing her gaze to meet his own. "What is it?"
"I've never…" she swallowed and looked down. How did you explain this to somebody? "No one's ever been so absolutely furious with me and not…hurt me." She felt strangely ashamed to admit it.
The fury returned again until he was absolutely radiating with it, but when he spoke she realized it was no longer directed at her. "If I could I'd find every one of them and kill them. Hell, maybe I will."
She had to smile at that, as shaky as it was. The sudden, irrational urge to throw herself at him and beg him to let her stay quickly wiped it from her face.
"Why, exactly, are you planning to leave? Don't tell me you're just going to run away."
She looked at him oddly. What was so hard to understand? "It's not exactly running away if there's no reason to stay anymore."
"Don't you remember the last time you thought leaving was a good idea?" He searched her eyes, speaking again before she could answer. "What makes you think we won't find you again?"
"Do you make it a matter of course to search for people you no longer want on your team?" Her voice cracked a bit at the end, betraying her emotions. She seemed to be falling apart.
Nate dropped his hands and stepped back as if he suddenly needed space between them for some reason. Her heart dropped out of her body. So this was the moment he told her they officially wanted her gone.
To her horror, she started crying, actually, openly crying. No, not just crying, it was more like sobbing. She covered her face with her hands, trying to understand where the flood of emotion was coming from. It was like after all this time of not allowing herself to cry before today, her body was taking the opportunity to release 20 years of pain.
She couldn't look at Nate, but she felt it when he wrapped his arms around her and gently kissed the top of her head, which only made her cry harder. Why was he trying to be kind? She must have been quite a pathetic sight if he were willing to comfort her in the same moment he'd planned to fire her.
"I'm sorry," she managed to choke out. "This is so humiliating. You must think I'm…I'm…"
"Hurting," he said quietly. "I think you're hurting."
Well that was certainly true, so she didn't respond, grateful when he hugged her tighter. If she didn't know how she was going to leave before, she couldn't even think about the idea now.
Which led to her sudden outburst. "Please, I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can do to make up for it I will. Don't kick me out. I know you've already decided but you don't know how sorry I am. I will spend the rest of my life trying to fix this if you just give me another chance to – " She stopped, aware of how desperate she sounded. It wasn't fair to ask of him something he couldn't give. She was being selfish. She pulled away from him, dully noting the sun had completely disappeared (how fitting) even though the sky held the last vestiges of a pinkish-grey light.
"Parker, I don't understand what you're going on about," he began, even as she talked over him.
"I shouldn't have asked you that. Forgive my sudden display of…emotion." She tried to affect the no-nonsense tone she had mastered so artfully over the years.
"Yes, God forbid you're human," he said dryly.
She knew he was fighting not to smile and it made her feel a sudden rush of affection, on which she blamed her next words. "I don't know what I'm going to do without you."
"Am I going somewhere?" He did smile now, stepping toward her again.
The fluttering somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach definitely wasn't anxiety and she was utterly at a loss. "I thought we covered this," she said more sternly than she intended.
"Oh, right, the whole thing about how you're leaving and won't tell me why? And then how you were begging me to let you stay? Which, when you view those two things in context, don't make a lot of sense," his tone was teasing as he studied her.
She was irrationally hurt. "Don't kid about…" getting rid of me. She couldn't say it.
"I don't know what's going on here, Parker." He was confused. "You don't actually think…wait, you do, don't you? You think we want you off the team?"
Parker risked a glance at him. He sounded incredulous, but he was as good an actor as the rest of them. Then again, what was the point in acting now? "I know what I did was…unforgivable. No one wanted to talk to me afterwards even though I tried. Then you called this meeting." She bit her lip. Was it possible she had everything completely wrong?
If the way Nate was looking at her was any indication, that was definitely the case. "Parker, I would – what I mean is we would never do that. We're all in this together. Don't you know that by now?"
She most certainly did not, and this time when he hugged her she was at least grateful she wasn't sobbing. "You mean you guys weren't considering replacing me?"
"Parker," he said firmly, drawing back so he could look in her eyes, "no one could ever replace you. And there is nothing you could do that would make me fire you from this team."
"Is that a challenge?" She smirked, her heart feeling lighter than it had been since, well, ever.
"No, just a promise," he answered so softly she could barely hear him. The damn emotion welled up again and she swallowed hard.
"Still, the others must be furious with me. Are you sure that they still want me here? What if they're planning something behind your back?" She hated to suggest it, but she couldn't forget the anger she'd seen earlier. How could they forgive her just like that? And what if they wanted her gone but Nate didn't? Would they fight him on it? Would he lose?
More than anything she hated how needy she sounded. Where was the old Parker who never needed reassurance? She seemed to have disappeared at the thought that these four might soon be casting her aside.
Nate's expression darkened and his eyes narrowed as he stared at a point over her shoulder. "They wouldn't do that. And let's just say if they even considered it, they would be the ones looking for another team. Parker, if it ever comes down to that, I'm on your side. We'd have our own team. I hope you know that."
That sounded suspiciously like a declaration to her, and it made her – dare she admit it? – thrilled. "Are you saying you'd pick me over them? All of them?"
"That," he brushed his lips over her forehead in the lightest of kisses, "is exactly what I'm saying."
"But, why?" She implored. His only answer was to stare at her. She couldn't take his silence and leaned in on impulse, kissing him quickly. When she pulled back, she only read surprise in his eyes and realized she might have made a terrible mistake.
"I shouldn't have done that," she apologized.
He tilted his head to the side and grinned at her. "Why not?"
She felt awash in relief, and this time they met in the middle for a real kiss. It felt different somehow from all the others she'd had in her life. It felt like…belonging.
She pulled back after a minute. It wasn't that she was averse to kissing Nate on the roof of their building, it's just that the option had never been available to her, or so she thought. Now that it was, well, she had to do some reevaluating.
How quickly things had changed. Not a half hour ago she'd been contemplating her life without them. Now she had to contemplate her life with them – and Nate – in an entirely different way.
As skittish as she was about personal commitment, the thought should have terrified her. It didn't.
"As I was saying awhile ago," Nate was explaining, "if you had shown up at the meeting you would know that Hardison thinks he's tracked Linden to Mexico. I already booked us flights. He's not getting away from us."
She sighed with relief. Maybe Linden wouldn't get away after all. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Nate again, thinking that in this one day, she'd hugged someone more than she had in her entire life until this point.
"It's nice to be able to hug someone just because I can," she whispered, even as he tipped her head back, that intense gaze of his once again taking her breath away. He'd always been able to do that, she realized.
"You can hug me anytime you need to," he told her solemnly, kissing her again. "Now let's go inside. It's getting cold and they're probably wondering what's taking us so long."
"I know your secret, Nate." She told him as he reached for the door. "You knew anyone who took my place wouldn't be as good as me. It's a business decision, right?" She was joking, but he must have sensed the thread of uncertainty in her words because he abruptly turned and pushed her gently against the wall.
"I don't care if you can break into the most secure buildings in the world. I don't care how many jobs you've pulled off, how many people you've conned, or what your credentials are. You could be Parker, the ordinary waitress at the local café, and you'd still be extraordinary to me."
She shut her eyes for a moment because surely this must be a dream. But when she opened them, there he was, standing tall and resolute and checking to make sure she not only heard his words, but accepted them as truth. And she finally, finally, knew what it was like to be loved. It was as miraculous as she always imagined it would be.
Parker could tell you what it was like to be unwanted, to be forgotten, to be hated, to be abused. She could tell you how to survive relying only on yourself. She could tell you that the only way to get by is to stop expecting things from the world, because that was the only way to guarantee you'd never be hurt.
Yes, Parker knew what it was like to have people fight to get rid of her. But fight to keep her around? Fight to close the door before she could exit? Fight for her not because of what she could give, but because of who she was? No, she hadn't had this. Never this. She could admit she liked it. And as she walked with Nate back to their office, her hand held firmly in his, she knew she was breaking every rule she ever relied on to survive. Except everything was different now because of the man walking beside her.
No, she swore, this time she wasn't going to feel bad for letting herself get used to this. She leaned into Nate slightly as her thoughts drifted. If she could make him happy, maybe she deserved to let herself be happy, too. For once in her life she refused to feel guilty about that.