Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target. The only things I get for writing this are your reviews!
Author's note: Cedricsowner asked me a while ago to write a first meeting between Guerrero and Winston so here it is. I've set it about a month after Katherine Walters' death as the dialogue in 'Sanctuary' seemed to suggest that Guerrero had already worked quite a few cases with them prior to the start of the first season.
Additional author's note: This is a new, longer version of "First Impressions". The first version tumbled out as a bit of a problematic mess to be honest, so with the help of some harsh but fair criticism, I decided to rework and repost it. It's still far from perfect but I hope it has improved. PLEASE let me know what you think.
"An Uncle Benny? You've got to be kidding me."
"Seriously Winston, almost any game play you can imagine has a codename. Don't ask me why they're called what they're called, they just are. I guess someone figured naming them after fictitious relatives made the code easier to drop into conversation."
Winston gave his new partner a sceptical look as they stepped out of the elevator into the barren expanse of the warehouse. Chance was insistent that the trick they just pulled was not only a classic ploy, it also had an established codename.
They'd only been working together for a couple of weeks and were still trying to figure each other out. It hadn't all been plain sailing as Chance was used to working with people who understood the way he worked and could anticipate what he needed to be done, people who had no problem deciphering his bizarre codenames. He often grew frustrated with having to spell everything out to his new partner.
Winston had his fair share of problems with Chance too. His definition of an acceptable risk was a long way from what Winston was comfortable with and Chance had a tendency to leap into a situation without a plan or even informing Winston as to what was going on. The ex-hitman and the ex-cop were having to work hard to find a common ground.
"I don't know that I believe anyone else would be insane enough to deliberately plan the shit you just pulled, let alone give it a name." Winston grumbled.
"The Uncle Benny is a classic, dude, but it always goes smoother with a third person."
Chance and Winston drew their weapons and spun round to face the intruder who had just interrupted their conversation. He was leaning casually against the wall and despite having two guns trained on him he seemed totally at ease. Winston had never seen the man before but as he glanced over at Chance he saw that he recognised the wiry stranger. At first Chance tensed, as if steeling himself to shoot the intruder but then he seemed to take in the man's relaxed stance and he began to lower his gun before changing his mind again and aiming at the man's head. The stranger seemed amused by his indecision.
"What the hell are you doing here, Guerrero?" Chance demanded.
"That's Guerrero?" Winston asked. "The Guerrero? I thought he'd be taller somehow."
The stranger shot Winston a dirty look.
"A fat idiot stuffed into a cheap suit? You're exactly what I was expecting for a failed cop."
Winston grunted and made a show of taking the safety off his weapon.
"Seriously dude?" Guerrero asked. "You left a sweet deal with the Old Man to team up with this walrus?"
"What do you want Guerrero?" Chance persisted. "Did he send you?"
"I'm kinda persona non gratia at the moment dude. After I failed to bring you in I went AWOL myself. It was all getting a bit weird."
"Which brings us back to my original question: what the hell are you doing here?"
Guerrero shrugged. "Satisfying my curiosity I guess. I want to know why someone who is so good at what it is we do would throw it all away."
"That part of my life is over. I'm not going back."
"I'm not asking you to come back, dude. I just want an explanation. Why did you leave? And if you are so serious about turning your back on all that… why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?"
Chance sighed and holstered his weapon.
"You might as well put your gun away Winston. Guerrero is just here to talk."
"No way, man!" Winston replied. "If even a tenth of what I've heard about this guy is true we should have shot him on sight!"
"Well then I suggest you go for a walk or something." Chance said. "We need to talk."
"He's a psychopath!" Winston protested. "I can't leave you here alone with him!"
Chance smiled as Guerrero sniggered at Winston's outrage.
"He's also… a friend." Chance said. "Believe it or not, if he was here to kill me he'd be totally up front about it."
"It's true." Guerrero said with a smile. "If I was here to kill Chance I would give him the courtesy of a warning. Cops, however, are fair game so why don't you run along to the donut shop and give us some space before you really piss me off?"
Winston looked to Chance but saw that he wasn't going to get any support from him. Now he'd decided that Guerrero wasn't a threat he seemed to relax. Chance smiled and shrugged in a 'what can you do?' gesture.
"Fine." Winston huffed, backing towards the elevator whilst keeping his gun firmly pointed at Guerrero. "You do what you got to do but if he's still here when I get back in one hour I'll…"
"You'll what?" Guerrero smirked.
"One hour Chance. He'd better be gone."
"So, you walked out on the Old Man too?" Chance asked.
"Didn't have much choice, dude." Guerrero replied. "My orders were to finish the job and bring you home. Failing that I was supposed to kill you. I blew it on all three counts. I wasn't going to face him after that. I kinda enjoy breathing."
Chance nodded and took a sip of his coffee. They were standing in the kitchen area of the warehouse. The previous occupant obviously wasn't much of a chef and the facilities were basic to say the least. Guerrero had dug around in the cupboards and managed to find some kind of herbal tea and had made himself a cup. Chance stuck to coffee although he wasn't enjoying it much thanks to the lack of milk and sugar. He wrinkled his nose at the bitter tang of what was probably the worst coffee he'd ever tasted.
"I heard that Baptiste finished the job." Guerrero said softly, watching carefully to see how Chance would react.
"Yeah, he did." Apart from a slight hardening of his expression, Chance gave nothing away.
"I get that you liked her but that isn't it, is it? Your heart hasn't been in it for a while, I could see that. I want to know what changed."
Chance sighed. As difficult as it was to explain, he would have to try.
"You know I went up against the old guy who lived here a while back, and he kicked my ass?"
Guerrero nodded.
"He could have, no scratch that, should have killed me. My number was up, he beat me hands down and I knew that was it. I was going to die. Hell, I was ready to die! But he never took the shot. He just gave me the weirdest look and said 'nobody deserves to die'. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but it never occurred to me before to question whether anyone deserved to die or not. It was just my job to make it happen."
"By the time a job comes to us, someone has already made that call, dude. If we're involved, that person is as good as dead already. If it wasn't you doing the hit, it would be someone else." Guerrero was disconcerted by the way Chance's explanation was heading. It was a long way from the Junior he knew.
"I know. For a while that was enough to keep me going. If I didn't kill them, someone else would and all I'd be doing would be missing out on a pay day and pissing off the Old Man. I had doubts, I even questioned some of the assignments that came my way but my job was my life, it was who and what I was."
"So this Katherine Walters chick…she tipped the balance?" Guerrero asked.
It had to be the woman, he thought. Wasn't it always?
Chance nodded.
"Why her?" Guerrero asked apprehensively. If he says he loved her I may just have to shoot him before I vomit.
"The Old Man knew I was having my doubts so he lied to me." Chance said. "He told me she was in up to her neck in a client's business, that she could cause all sorts of trouble for them and the Old Man too. When I actually met her… something didn't feel right."
"You talked to her didn't you dude? You know that was a mistake. You get in, do the job, get out. You start asking questions and simple jobs get real complicated real fast."
"You know why they wanted her dead? The reason why she got into that mess?"
"Does it matter?" Guerrero asked. "Either way she's dead now anyway. It's done."
"She heard a gunshot." Chance went on, ignoring the question. "Rather than running away, she went to try and help a dying stranger. That was her mistake. She saw someone who needed help and she went to him."
"That's all very noble and all but it didn't do either of them any good."
"But she did it anyway. She made a choice."
"I don't see what you're getting at here, dude." Guerrero frowned.
"I stopped making my own choices a long time ago Guerrero." Chance said sadly. "She made me realise that I wasn't even free to make my own decisions. I've been playing a role for the Old Man for so long that all I was was this job that didn't make sense to me anymore. I became what he wanted me to be and somehow lost my own identity in the process."
"Kind of sounds like teenage rebellion." Guerrero said, smiling in relief that at least the explanation was leading back to the Old Man and not his feelings for Katherine Walters. "You're a bit long in the tooth for all that, don't you think?"
"Don't try and laugh this off, Guerrero. You wanted an explanation so here it is."
"Sorry. Go on caller, I'm listening."
"So I find myself in a situation where the boss is ordering me to kill this harmless woman and all I can think about is how much better the world would be if she was still in it. She was…" Chance's voice trailed off. There were plenty of ways he could have finished that sentence: innocent, kind, generous, trusting. Despite the need he felt to make Guerrero understand his decision, Chance couldn't talk about his feelings for Katherine. It was just too personal and was something he was uncomfortable even thinking about let alone discussing out loud.
"I just couldn't see how killing her would do anyone any good." Chance said eventually. "It would just be mindless destruction for the sake of some rich guy's convenience. And it hit me, that's all I was, mindless destruction. I didn't think for myself anymore and if I wasn't making my own decisions then nothing I did meant anything anyway. I destroyed people I knew nothing about without a thought. I still don't understand why, but that scared me a little and it's a long time since anything did that."
"Okay, I get that you don't want to be the Old Man's son and heir anymore. I can't say that I'd just walk away from all that if I was in your position, but I guess I can sort of understand it. The Old man kept you on a fairly short leash but seriously dude, a crisis of conscience? Are you kidding me?"
"No, Guerrero." Chance said with equal parts sadness and frustration at his inability to make him understand. "I'm not kidding you. This isn't just about getting away from the Old Man, it's about genuine regret for the things I've done in my life, for the decisions I've made and the ones I let other people make for me. I just don't want to do it anymore."
Guerrero turned Junior's words over in his mind, trying to consider the different angles, but whatever way he looked at it, he couldn't make it make sense. Junior was practically a god-damn artist when it came to his work, how was it possible that he was even considering turning his back on it?
"I don't get it dude." He said. "I don't get how you think you're not going to miss the buzz."
"There are other ways to feel alive." Chance said.
"Like what?"
"Like out-witting the other guy. Like keeping score by saving lives instead of taking them."
Guerrero looked sceptical. "So is that what you're going to do now?"
"I'm starting again and this time I call the shots. Junior is dead. I'm taking up from where the last guy finished. I'm Christopher Chance now."
Guerrero sighed. "I was kind of afraid of that. I knew Baptiste finished off the old guy and when I heard you were hanging around with an ex-cop and that you'd taken on the lease on this place it all added up. So this is it now? You're what? A good guy? A vigilante? A fuckin' superhero?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of bodyguard or personal security consultant." Chance laughed. "But yeah, you get the drift of it."
"I hope you see the irony of assuming another man's identity in this situation."
"Beats the hell out of being Junior." He shrugged.
"Where does this leave me dude? I couldn't go back to the Old Man's crew if I wanted to, which I don't by the way. I've got no problem going freelance but it seems to me that it would eventually bring us back to another you or me type situation."
"I don't want that to happen, Guerrero. I don't ever want to be in that situation again."
"So was it just the whole 'nobody deserves to die' thing that stopped you from pulling the trigger? Or did you not want to kill anyone if front of your lady friend ?"
"Okay, there are elements of truth to both of those things."
"Anything else?"
"I didn't want to kill you Guerrero."
"I didn't want to kill you either but you've got to see how much simpler my life would be right now if I had."
They stood awkwardly for a moment, avoiding eye contact. They had at least established that their loyalties lay with each other, even if they weren't working on the same side anymore. It had been weird referring to Guerrero as his friend to Winston earlier, neither of them had ever really defined their relationship that way before, there had been no need. They worked together and their unusual line of work didn't really allow for a social life so they spent a lot of time in each other's company. They'd known each other for most of their adult lives and if the Old Man had been Junior's surrogate father then Guerrero was more of a brother than a co-worker.
"So what now?" Guerrero asked, breaking the awkward silence.
"You could join us, Winston and me, I mean. We could certainly use your skills and contacts."
"You couldn't afford me dude." Guerrero smiled.
"Probably not." Chance smiled back. Guerrero was well aware of his worth and Chance wouldn't insult him by offering less than what he was due.
"So how far does this do-gooder thing go anyway?" Guerrero asked.
"To be honest I'm just figuring it out as I go along at the moment."
Guerrero laughed. "Sounds like you may still have a few grey areas then."
"There is one thing I have to ask you though." Chance was obviously trying to find a way to ask him without it sounding like an ultimatum.
"Let me guess, no contracts?" Guerrero said.
Chance nodded sheepishly. It was one thing for him to turn his back on his career as an assassin but he had no idea how Guerrero would react to his request for him to do the same.
Guerrero ran his hands through his hair and let out a long sigh.
"If you continue taking contracts freelance, it won't just be me you have to worry about." Chance argued. "You'll be in direct competition with the old crew. Do you really want to have to keep one eye open for Baptiste every time you take a job? It won't just be him either, the Old Man has positions to fill and what better test of the new recruits skills than taking you out?"
"The thought had occurred to me dude." Guerrero conceded grudgingly.
"If you stay away from the wet work the Old Man is going to have a much harder time tracking either of us. He likes to think he's well connected but your network of contacts surpassed his a long time ago. There's a hell of a lot of money to be made with those contacts, without you having to kill anyone. Yeah, I guess I'm one of the good guys now but I'm not law enforcement! As long as you're not killing people for money I'm sure we could work it out so we don't end up in one of those me or you type situations."
"Make a killing without actually killing?" Guerrero asked, raising one eyebrow.
"Why not? I can't afford to hire you permanently but I could still throw some work your way occasionally. You're intel would be invaluable to us."
"I don't know dude. That sounds kind of limiting." He said doubtfully. "I can't promise you I'll never kill a guy if the need arises."
"All I'm asking is that you not kill for money or convenience."
"That leaves some wriggle room for self-defence I guess." Guerrero said thoughtfully.
"Yeah." Smiled Chance. "It does, but you know what I'm asking."
"You'd have to keep your partner out of my business though." He said. "I so don't need him tipping off his cop buddies to try and score points with his old boss."
"He's an ex-cop." Chance reminded him. "And a pretty disillusioned one at that. He wants to team up with me to do some good. He's had it with all that corrupt official bullshit."
"Whatever dude. He'll always be a cop at heart and I don't like cops."
They both turned as they heard the arrival of the elevator.
"Speak of the devil." Chance said looking at his watch. It hadn't been a whole hour so Winston must be worried about him. Chance spared a moment to let that sink in and decided that it would take some getting used to.