Notes: Well, as promised, here is my next long!fic. It's likely going to be at least nine chapters long so we'll be at this for awhile.
I've one quite a bit of reaserch for this but sadly, I lack the kind of reascources and time I'd like. Hopefully most of what you find here on in will be either fact or at the least ledger but please, if I get something hopelessly screwed up, remember this is fanfiction and no one's perfect.
Lastly, although this is in no ways part of my Black King White Knight verse (which is important for reasons you will eventually discover) I do use the same general backstory. Nate and Eliot still met in Cairo and the various histories are still more or less the same (some small changes), though it's less important to this story and fully explained in text as needed.
As usual this lovely edited fic is brought to you in part by ALS_Wonderland: She who should be praised.

The Legacy Job
Chapter One

Touchstone Psychiatric Hospital
Somerville, Massachusetts

"Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus." Adrian Merrins whispered to herself, locating the last word of the page in her word-find puzzle book. She drew the yellow crayon across the word carefully - if she wasn't careful it would break. That would be annoying and she needed to focus.

She paused, cocking her head to one side listening.

Footsteps in the hall.

Her lips twitched into a brittle smile. It was almost time. She just had to focus. She had a plan.

She had a plan.

She'd practiced. She just had to do it and not be afraid.

Tracy, a girl Adrian had group with, insisted the orderlies here could smell fear. Maybe not, but they would probably think she was having a panic attack and sedate her which would put a hamper in her all important plan.

Yes. She had a plan. "Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus." She repeated to herself, curling a little more around herself, bringing her knees and the book she was bracing against them a couple inches closer to her face.

"Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus." She repeated one more time, trying to calm her breathing. She really would send herself into a panic attack if she let herself get freaked out over this. And panic attacks would get in the way of the all important plan.

Footsteps outside her room's door. They stopped in front of it.

Adrian dropped her head forward farther, looking at the book without seeing it for once.

"Good morning Adrian. Hard at work already I see." It was Hanna, the nice new orderly. Her plan had hope! "Good god child. You already filled up the other one?"

Adrian didn't look up, though Hanna didn't seem to mind. She was used to Adrian. All the Orderlies were used to Adrian staying quiet and doing as told without comment and only responding when necessary. With a ward full of suicidal and mentally ill patients, having one that quietly did as told and never caused trouble was regarded as a good thing rather than unusual.

"Here's your medicine. It'll be time for Group soon."

As always Adrian untangled a hand from her book, stretching it out palm up to take the Dixie cup of meds.

She pulled it back toward her body when she put her plan into action and broke pattern. She looked up slowly, meeting Hanna's eyes. "Ms. Hanna?" She asked, her voice soft and small, trying to make herself seem as pitiful as a fifteen year old girl in a mental ward could.

Judging by the look Hanna gave her she was right to guess it was pretty pitiful. "What sweetie?"

"Can you do me a favor?"

"I don't know. What is it?"

Adrian dropped her eyes, curling tighter. "When my mom… foster mom… was here she said my friend Kayla was having trouble. I… I was thinking… and I thought she might be off her meds. She does that sometimes. Could… could you call my mom and ask her to see if Kayla's still taking her meds and if she isn't tell her parents they should go get help like they were talking about?" She offered a brittle smile. "I miss her but I don't want her to be my new room mate."

"Oh sweetie… I can do that." Hanna said with a little smile, patting Adrian's shoulder. "Once I've made my rounds. I promise."

Adrian's smile brightened and she nodded before downing the meds and offering back the cup. "Thank you."

"No problem." Hanna said taking the cup and letting herself back out of the room, locking it behind her.

With Hanna gone Adrian let her head fall forward to rest against her knees, breathing out the adrenalin and panic for a moment. Shaded by a screen of her own tangled hair she inched back just enough to look at the three small pills she'd slipped into her palm while distracting Hanna.

Strange, how all of this madness (literal and figurative) could revolve around such a tiny thing. There it was. A long thin white pill called Zo-tien, an antidepressant supposedly chemically designed for teens and children.

Even if they'd filed off the brand mark she could recognize it at a glance in her med cup.

She'd have to figure out where to hide these.

She closed her hand around the pills, pushing down the anxiety and fear. She focused on breathing through the most recent episode, her chest tensing up, blood pounding in her ears as she just breathed.

Clear your mind, see the whole page, pick a word, focus.

She hoped her foster mother, Selina, didn't think a month in a psych ward was making Adrian go crazy.

She hoped Selina would understand that even if Selina was good it was only a matter of time before they found out Adrian wasn't taking her meds and then…

Selina should act now.

Adrian just hoped they wouldn't kill her until after Zocrolf Pharmaceuticals had been taken down. It'd be nice to live long enough to get revenge for the others, and herself.

She pushed herself to stand, looking for a hiding place for the pills. She had a goal. She just had to focus. She just had to survive a few more weeks and she'd see her legacy come to light.

She could Rest after that.

oOo

Eliot Spencer's Apartment
Boston, MA

Normally, Eliot Spencer only slept ninety minutes a night. It was the minimal he could get down to before sacrificing functionality in the long run.

Still, there were times he slept longer. Like, for instance, when it was two o'clock on a Sunday and he hadn't slept since sometime Thursday and he'd been to three different countries and done the reconnaissance for both a personal job and one for the team.

It was Sunday. Everything was nicely tied up, his apartment was in perfect order, his roof top garden cared for, and his cell phone's ring volume turned all the way up. It was Sunday and he was ready for a good long rest.

He might even get extravagant and sleep for six hours. No, he was getting soft enough already. Five should be enough.

He was a little more than an hour into that well deserved sleep when his cell phone rang, pulling him back into the waking world.

He fumbled with his phone, normally lethal hands clumsy with exhaustion, not even bothering to check to see who was calling before answering. There were only five people in the world who knew this number.

"Someone better be in trouble or I will kill whoever's calling." He grumbled into the phone, forcing himself up and thinking through the process of getting ready to go save someone's ass.

"I managed to catch you sleeping again I see." The amused tone of the voice made Eliot pause and relax back down onto the bed, closing his eyes but smiling. "Let me see, oh. Three o'clock on a Sunday. Sounds about right for you. If I asked would you at least tell me how many continents you've been to in the past seventy two hours? Or if you'd slept at all in that time?"

"Three" Eliot answered with a sigh. "And no." He opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. "Not that I don't like hearing from my little sis every now an' then but is somthin' up?" He asked. They were as close as you could be considering the life he led but the calls were few and far between. It was safer for everyone that way.

"Nothin's wrong, though little El' and Marie miss their uncle now that they know him a little better. Any chance Mr. Ford will be giving you a few days off in a while? El's birthday is in a few weeks and you haven't been home for a visit since before your team got back together. "

Eliot sighed. Phone calls were few. Visits should have been fewer but somehow he'd managed to tumble back "home" to his sisters place more and more often in recent years. "I don't know sis. I have ta be careful."

"And if you leave town you'll probably come home to someone dead, someone in prison, and the crazy girl hoarding half the world's currency. I know." Joey added, poking fun at him in the way only a little sister would get away with, halfway across the country or not. "Anyway, I've got a project for you ta work on. Well, two really. First is ta try and find a babysitter for your team for a couple of days. Don't worry ya, got seven or eight months at do it." An alarm went off in Eliot's head. "Second, I want you ta start thinkin' up some names you like."

It only took Eliot another moment before he sat up, smile widening. "You're pregnant?"

He could hear the proud smile on Jo's voice as she responded. "Doctor confirmed it Friday, I've been trying to reach you all weekend."

"Wait, names? You want me ta pick a name?"

"Yeah." Joey confirmed. "You got eight months, so pick something good. Otherwise when they complain I'll tell them to blame you."

Eliot wasn't quite through processing that last bombshell when his brain rebooted only to freeze again and he really needed to spend less time around Hardison. "Wait. They? Twins?"

"Uhuh." Joey replied, though her voice trailed off at the end. "I have to go. Your nephew is trying to climb the old oak in the back again. He only just got the cast off from the last time he tried. I'll call on Friday for what you've come up with."

The line went dead before Eliot could protest that she'd said he had eight months.

Eliot hung up and lay down again, resisting the temptation to do something incredibly undignified like burry his head under a pillow to block out the world. He took a deep breath, and then another one, and finally felt himself relaxing a little bit more.

He'd think about baby names later, and the fact there would soon be two more small children in his sister's life that he'd have to find someway to safeguard against the perils of their uncle's world . Nate was interviewing a new client tomorrow, so Eliot would be on the job this week and probably have as much down time as he normally did when the rest of the pieces were moving themselves.

He'd think about all this tomorrow.

Right now he was getting some sleep.

oOo

It never changed, Nate thought, watching their newest client from across the table. Young, old, married, single, male, or female. They always looked tired when they took that seat. They always had the same mix of resignation and fragile hope.

Something about it made Nate almost wish he'd ordered something stronger than coffee.

Selina Locklin was a middle aged woman, her dark brown hair showing just a few hints of gray, face etched with the beginnings of laugh and frown lines equally. She was dressed professionally and seemed composed, despite what Nate already knew of her story that had been the basis for the meeting.

With the introductions over, Nate mentally braced himself and asked the woman to tell her story.

"I work with Protective Services." Selina began, giving a small smile to the waitress who brought her a mug of coffee before turning her attention back to Nate and Sophie. "I used to work with foster kids in general, but a few years ago I started being assigned to work exclusively with kids in the system suffering from mental illnesses. I organized programs to get them the help they need, did home visits to make sure they were doing alright, I even ran a sort of support group for them where they could meet together and help each other." She smiled and Nate didn't need to be half the profiler he was to see the hint of pride in her eyes. "I didn't have much help, but the difference the attention was making was actually being recognized…" She sighed. "Until…"

"Budget cuts." Nate supplied. With the way the country's economy was going there were few programs that hadn't seen the axe.

"I got pulled back to regular duty." She answered with a nod. "All the programs got canceled, we didn't have the funding or man power anymore. That was bad enough but…" She let out a long sigh. "The state provides foster families with money to get the kids meds and some therapy. After the programs got the axe about fifty kids who were considered "low risk" lost the government funding. Some of their parents were willing to take over but for the others… The people who decided all this weren't doctors, they didn't account for how dangerous taking someone off an antidepressant cold turkey can be."

"When Zocrolft Pharmaceuticals announced they wanted to help, I was suspicious." She gave a self deprecating smile. "I admit I've been on the job too long. Even my kids say I'm more paranoid than they are." Nate nodded, it had taken him some time to convince her they legitimately wanted to help her. "But they said they were producing a new anti-depressant chemically designed for children and teenagers and providing free meds for foster children who needed them was a perfect way to generate good PR. It was a win-win situation and it wasn't my choice."

As Nate watched, she returned her attention to her coffee mug, taking a breath as she reached the hard part. The part where the clients told them how they'd been royally screwed, who it had hurt, and how trying to fix it had only made matters worse. "When did you realize something was wrong?" He asked gently.

"Jacob Downing was the first suicide." Selina answered softly. "He was sixteen and smart with a bright future, despite the manic depression. He was considered low risk but these things happen. " She gave a bitter laugh. "I work with kids who statistically have a suicide rate ten times the national average. We lose a couple a year. I… I don't like it, but you learn to live with it and move on or you burn out." She took another drink of coffee. "After Jacob came Jessica Wiler. Then Michaela Marks. All in less than a month. I found out that there had been three failed attempts. These kids had one main thing in common. They'd been considered low risk. A month after they started Zo-Tien, this supposed miracle drug, a tenth of the kids on it had tried to kill themselves."

There was a long silence as the full implications sank in. Six deaths was bad. Six kids, six foster kids which held a certain sway considering Parker and Hardisons backgrounds…

Sophie recovered first. "You went to your superiors?"

"I went to my boss, Mr. Randolf, head of my department, and his boss, but nothing happened. There was another suicide and another failed attempt while I waited for them to do something. I… there were a handful of kids I was still in contact with - I told them to stop taking their meds." She gave a look of disbelief. "There was one more attempted suicide and then suddenly all the meds got taken back, the project was canceled, the files on the database about it deleted, and the entire matter shuffled under the rug. I… I hit my breaking point and quit. I had some money saved up, figured I had some time to figure out what to do next."

"That's when you applied for custody of Adrian?"

Selina nodded. "Adrian Merrins. I knew her from the group sessions. She started coming in when she was thirteen, low risk but at that age there was plenty of chances she'd get worse as she got older. She was one of the early suicide attempts. Michaela was her foster sister, they made a suicide pact. Michaela succeeded, Adrian didn't. By the time I quit, Adrian had been kicked out of her foster family and I guess I still wanted to help these kids if I could. I didn't really think they'd let me take her but they did." She gave a small smile, reaching into her purse to dig out a picture of a smiling blonde girl in her mid teens.

"I had her for six months. Things were hard but… she was doing better, and we were making it work. She even started calling me Mom." Selina shook her head. "I'm forty five years old and divorced. I always thought just having my foster kids would be enough but my Adrian… " She looked up to meet Nate's eyes. "Do you have children Mr. Ford?"

Nate breathed through the pain that twisted his chest at that question. "I did."

Selina looked down. "Oh. I'm… I'm sorry." She let out a long breath, taking it in before pressing forward. "I tried to move on, to focus on Adrian. I didn't know if there was anything I could do, but I kept my eyes open. When I found out that Zo-Tien's release date was pushed back further I went digging. It was half determination, half dumb luck but I found a hint of something and followed it. I found out Zo-Tien hadn't been tested under normal circumstances. Instead of getting a test group the normal way, they bribed a couple of officials and used my kids as lab rats. I was still trying to figure out what to do next when social services came out of the blue and took Adrian and put her in a state run psych ward."

"Collateral." Nate muttered.

Selina nodded. "I was approached outside my house. I keep my mouth shut or Adrian's next suicide attempt will succeed." She pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and slid it across the table. It was a photo copy of a suicide note "signed" by Adrian. "I got that in the mail four days later."

"When did this happen?" Nate asked as Sophie looked over the note.

"A little over a month ago. I didn't know to do. I didn't know who was watching me or how and if I tried anything I was afraid… if it wasn't for the message Adrian got to me I might have not even talked to you."

"The message?" Sophie asked.

"She wanted me to check to make sure Kayla was still taking her meds." Nate was about to ask for further explanation when Selina saw their confused expressions. "Kayla is what Adrian called Michaela. She's been dead for nearly a year. She was the first to stop taking the Zo-Tien and got Adrian to stop too until their foster parents made them start again."

Nate was just beginning to make the connection when Sophie spoke. "They're making Adrian take Zo-Tien."

Selina nodded. "I don't know what their game plan is, but I don't think what I do matters anymore. They're trying to kill Adrian. All I've got left is getting this public before they succeed."

oOo

Hardison slid into Nate's apartment a little after noon. Nate and Sophie were meeting with the client downstairs, Parker was god only knew where, and Eliot was probably running errands or whatever he did that resulted in him having the food needed to feed them all over the course of a job. After the fiasco that was the job with the food company, they weren't feeling particularly eager to get a head start on recon without Nate's go-ahead.

Hardison took a couple steps into the apartment before amending his previous train of thought. Eliot wasn't running errands or whatever it was he did in his off time. He was sitting on a stool at Nate's kitchen counter working on the laptop Hardison had given him for the few times Eliot actually needed one.

Judging from his expression though, and how quickly Eliot shut the laptop's screen, it was not something he felt inclined to share.

"Dude, remember what Nate said about looking at porn in his kitchen?" Hardison called as he walked over to his couch and started setting up his stuff. Eliot ignored his teasing, slowly opening his computer back up and typing a few moments to close out whatever he'd been working on. "You working a side job?"

Before Eliot could answer his cell rang and he turned away from Hardison to answer it. "Nate?... Okay… yeah… Be down in a minute." He hung up and started packing up his stuff. "They're done. I'm keeping an eye on our client until the recon's done and we're ready to move her to a safe house." Hardison nodded. That was more or less standard procedure now, since the near disaster with Perry.

Eliot headed out and Hardison settled down. He made it seven whole minutes before he gave into his curiosity.

It was the work of all of a minute for Hardison to get a hold of Eliot's search history and what he found made a look of something between horror and devious glee cross his face.

In the past two hours Eliot had hit four different baby name sites (all for only a couple minutes before they'd been hastily navigated away from) and found several articles about the pre-natal care for twins.

When Sophie and Nate came in twenty minutes later they found Hardison typing furiously. Parker responded to their questioning looks before the hacker could. Sitting on a couch across from Hardison (where she hadn't been moments before) she looked to Nate and Sophie with a big smile. "Hardison thinks Eliot's pregnant."

Sophie and Nate blinked, stunned and stuttering for some kind of answer. Hardison turned his screen around to show them. "Eliot spent the morning searching baby names, pre-natal doctors, and nursery catalogues. There's only one thing that's going to make someone like Eliot do that."

There was a moment of silence before Nate spoke the words they were all thinking, shock on his voice. "Eliot's having a kid."