Summary: Written for comment-fic at LJ. Theme: AU. Prompt: any, They never fired that shot.
Past
It's not that he's never taken a life before; he has, and plenty of them. It's just that…
Well, before, killing wasn't for the money. It wasn't for anything but the flag of the United States of America. He was an extension of the nation; he was the hand holding the gun that was fired by the country.
But now?
If he pulls that trigger now, he'll be killing for himself. For money (even if it is an awful lot of money). It would be murder.
And Mama and Daddy had taught him that murder is wronger than wrong, and damnable to boot.
Now Eliot don't do everything that Mama and Daddy tell him to do – he is twenty-three after all – but when it comes to life-or-death things like this, it's good sense to just shut up and listen.
Mama said, all those years ago, "Don't play with that gun, Eliot."
So he puts that gun down and runs.
He runs all the way home to Kentucky and the horse farm and right into Aimee's arms.
She'd waited for him, see. Kept her promise, so he buys her a real ring. They're married by Christmas and their first baby's here by Thanksgiving.
He'll always say that it was the best damn choice he ever made to put that gun down.
Until.
The barn burns down, set on fire by that bastard Alan Foss, and Willie finds some people who say that they can help.
Eliot don't need help…
…but for the horses? He'll take help, for the horses that died in that fire, screaming. He'll take help for Baltimore.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ford drinks too much. Watches him too much, too. It's uncanny, the way those piercing blue eyes follow him around.
The techie kid would talk an ear off of an apple if it had one.
That Kitty lady, or Sophie, or whatever the hell her name is – she's downright scary, smilin' that much all the damn time.
And the blonde? Somethin' wrong with her, too.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
After the job, Ford walks up to him, asks him, "Army? Ranger?"
"None of your damn business," he snarls back at the drunk. Eliot doesn't like to think about those days when he'd almost pulled that trigger, almost become a different man.
"Ah," Ford nods, as if he'd actually given a real answer, "Special Ops then?"
Eliot grunts. Not yes, not no.
"You didn't startle when Parker turned up behind you. Not many people can do that."
Eliot sighs, turns to the man. "That's all a part of my past. I paid my dues to my country and now I wanna live in peace with my family without people nosin' around my business."
Ford takes the hint. Leaves. Leaves with his fancy team and fancy gadgets and gets the hell out of his life.
And Eliot…thinks. Admits that he's never let his guard down, not even when he's got babies crawling all over him and pulling at his hair, not when he's at the grill barbecuing up enough grub to feed thirty people, not in bed with his wife. He doesn't let his guard down, and he'll never be able to. The past is always there, in the shadows, in the periphery of his vision.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The past catches up.
The farm burns. The horses scream. And Aimee, the children…All gone.
Gone.
He calls Ford. Asks for help. This time for himself.
"Mr. Ford? This is Eliot Spencer. I need your help."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .