Title: The Crownless Again Shall Be King | Author: 2cbetter2
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: I'm gonna say everything up to The Queen's Gambit Job in Season 4
Summary: In this crossover between Leverage and The Pretender, a mysterious strange will change the team's lives forever. Written for Leverageland Heist 5 Team Up challenge in which I teamed up with ultra_fic of Team Hitter (she made the artwork)
AN: This is a mere shadow of the story I had envisioned but it was write this or nothing.
AN 2: Special thanks to aricadavidson who made this suggestion when all else failed to help or inspire me.
Disclaimers: I own neither Leverage or The Pretender and since I've made nothing on this I ask the people who own both not to sue me.
0o0
"Nate?" Sophie whispered as she entered the room. He held a finger up to his lips asking for her to be quiet as she came further in and Sophie nodded not speaking again until she reached him. She took in his tired features, touching his ever errant curls as she said, "Nate, you need to get some sleep."
Nate looked at her, his exhaustion apparent in his eyes along with something else too. "I can't, Sophie. I can't take my eyes off of him!"
"But it's been almost three days since you've slept properly and you're not doing him or yourself a bit of good by wearing yourself out like this."
"But what if I go to sleep, wake up all to find out that the last few days have been nothing more a cruel dream?" His eyes briefly left the bed to look at her face. "Soph, I couldn't take this being all a dream. I..." His voice broke on there, and his eyes returned to the form laying in the bed. "It'll kill me if I lose him a second time."
"I know."
Three days earlier...
With another con successfully pulled off under their belts, the team entered McRory's about twenty minutes until closing time. The bar was empty except for the bartender, who nodded at them when they came in, and a few patrons who were finishing off the last bit of their drinks.
A few minutes later, the bartender had headed home knowing they'd close up after him, with soon the only other person in the room besides them was an older man who sat in the corner watching them while trying to appear like he wasn't, and none of them remembered ever have seen him before now. The stranger even smiled back when Eliot shot a glare in his direction, and he never moved from where he was sitting.
Finally Hardison had had enough. "Okay, who is that dude and why does he keep staring at us like that instead of leaving? 'Cause he's really starting to give me the creeps, y'all!"
After taking one last look at his watch, Eliot stood up. "It's one minute past closing time so I'm now officially kickin' the guy out right now whoever he is." The others watched as Eliot walked over to the man, and informed him the bar was closing. "You need to leave now, mister."
"Actually, I need to speak with Mr. Ford there first."
Eliot gave the stranger another look over and he didn't seem to have the air of urgent desperation that most of their clients had. "You can talk with him tomorrow when we've reopened for business. Right now the bar's closed and we're off the clock from work."
"All right then, thank you. I'll come back tomorrow." The stranger replied and started walking towards the door. The moment he knew Eliot had turned away to rejoin the rest of the team is the moment he made his move, and hurried over the end of the bar where Nate was sharing a drink with the others. "Mr. Ford, my name is Jarod and I need to talk to you about something very important! I-" The looks of the others that said he was crazy had barely registered when he suddenly had a pair of strong arms wrapped around his throat cutting off his air enough to where he could no longer talk but he still got enough to where he didn't pass out from lack of oxygen.
The hitter's voice was a low growl in his ear. "All right since you want to do this the hard way, we'll do it the hard way!"
Jarod wanted to struggle but the lack of air was making it impossible and all he could do before he felt himself being bodily moved towards the door was lock eyes with the man he had come to see. They had almost reached the door when he heard a voice call out from behind.
"Eliot!" They stopped moving, and he heard the other man respond with a gruff yeah. "Let's hear what he has to say, hmm?" In the next second Jarod felt the arms release, and he couldn't fight the urge to cough or rub his neck. "Thanks."
Nate poured him a glass of water. "It's late, Mr...?"
"Jarod."
"It's late, Mr. Jarod, so-"
"It's just Jarod."
"Right, as I was saying, Jarod, it's late and we're all tired so if you could please say whatever it is you have to say."
Jarod nodded and walked back over to the booth he had been sitting at, pulling out a metal briefcase. Returning to the bar, he opened it revealing a screen of some sort and several small silver discs that looked like miniature DVDs placed inside many pockets. But instead of inserting one of those in the player's slot, he took one out of his jacket pocket and inserted it into the player. "There's something I need to show you first before I say what I have to say." He pressed a button and moved out of the way to allow the five of them to gather around the player.
The first thing to appear on the screen were the name Samuel followed by a date and the words For Centre Use Only. The footage was in black and white. They had a side view of a child laying on his side facing away from the camera and two strange adults talking in the room, one a doctor while the other a wizened man with an oxygen tank on wheels.
"He's responding very well to Jarod's cure, Mr. Raines."
Taking a wheeze of a breath, the shriveled old man said, "It's been over a month already, doctor. I want him ready as soon as possible. We have a lot of work to do."
The doctor nodded, "I understand that, Mr. Raines, but this boy has been very sick for a long time and it's going to take sometime to get him completely healthy again."
"Get it done, doctor." The old man wheezed then walked out of the room.
The camera changed angles and before the screen went black again they could see the face of the boy on the bed.
Sophie gasped, "Oh my...Sam!"
Eliot's eyes narrowed but before the hitter could turn on the stranger, they all heard the sound of a taser firing followed briefly by a scream and the thud of a body making contact with the floor.