Notes: The way this chapter ends is actually how this whole story got started. A plot bunny bit me and I wrote the recordings and I had to figure out somthing to put them in and well... this happened.
Note the second: I actually started writting this during the break between seasons so, while I'm doing my best to fix the minor inconsitancies the major ones (the new HQ not really being offices) would take some work and change the flow a bit. So some minor creative licence here is going to have to go a long way until I have an OCD afternoon off (or, you know, even just a regular afternoon off) and fix this.


Fathers
Phillips, Lawrence, and Spencer


Nate once said he knew his father best by comings and goings. Growing up the Ford family had been poor. His father was an alcoholic, barely able to hold down a job and as likely to spend his wage on drink as on his family. Half the reason Nate had been the catholic he was was that there had been plenty of times in his childhood that their church was the only reason he and his mother hadn't gone hungry.

Nate had never really been close to his father. When he was little his father had rarely been home before bedtime and spent most of the weekends gone on get rich quick schemes that never seemed to work. Then around the time Nate was eleven something seemed to work, or stick. His father started making money enough for them to live comfortable but started being gone away on road trips for days or weeks at a time.

But he was there for Nate's graduation from high school as valedictorian, so that was something right?

Something changed after that and maybe they started making amends after all those years. He liked that Nate was in seminary school. He liked that Nate was going to be a priest. He said he'd make a good father, that joking smile on his face that made Nate feel like the good son of a good father. For the first time in his life he was making his father proud and happy about it.

When he left Seminary school to marry Maggie his father was the first one he told. He'd been scared and confused and his father told him not to worry. He'd make a good father, whether it was as a priest or as a dad.

Things had gone so well. Things had been okay. To this date Nate still didn't understand why three years later he got a call from his mom at two in the morning saying his father had gotten a desperate call and all but ran out of the house without his jacket. He didn't understand why three days later his mom got a call from his father saying he was sorry. He didn't get why two days after that Nate was standing in the morgue of some little town in the middle of Kentucky identifying his father's body.

He didn't know why his father killed himself.

His mom was never the same after that. She never forgave herself for letting him run out that door that night without promising to come back.

oOo

The silence following Eliot's departure lasted for more than a minute. Everyone was in shock. No one knew what to do or what to make of what was happening.

Honestly, Nate probably wasn't really the first one to recover. He wouldn't recover from this until Eliot was safely back in his arms. He was however the one with the most driving need to do something to fix this, he was the one with an idea of how much hell was about to break loose. "Parker, follow him as long as you can. Go"

Parker went without a word, sprinting to catch up with her quarry.

Nate turned to the other two, more than aware that Rule Number Eight had likely just been broken with no chance of repair. The look on Sophie's face, somewhere between disbelief and growing anger, told him indeed yes. Hardison however looked unsurprised, well as unsurprised as this situation could reasonably allow. "Hardison?"

"I knew man." Hardison said, raising his hands in innocence. "You guys really need to learn that being sneaky mean having your cell phones off." Nate held back all reaction to this new information. He had more important things to deal with and maybe it was a good thing that he didn't have to deal with Hardison as well as Sophie. "Okay then, go find out where that call came from and find out what you can about who called him.

Hardison nodded, heading for the door. His hackers den had his best equipment and he likely knew things with Sophie were going to be distracting in the apartment. "I'll have something in an hour."

Nate turned to Sophie. "You have an hour and then we're finding out what's going on with Eliot."

Sophie nodded but was getting her voice back. "How long?"

"We had a few flings early on." Nate answered thinking back. "We shrugged it off as a fluke, or the latest twist in the weird relationship we've had since Cairo. It started getting serious after the miracle job. We got a place together right before we went down to do the Bank job. We broke it off when everyone split up but we got back together pretty quick afterwards."

She nodded looking away. He could see what she was thinking. That he'd been leading her on, even after things got serious, at least for a little while in little ways. Even if by the time he and Eliot were living together he wasn't the one initiating the advances he'd never told her he wasn't available. "You have every right to be angry." Nate said. "It was wrong and I know sorry isn't going to cut it. Just… know it was Eliot who kept saying we should tell you if no one else and me who kept saying no. It's not his fault. If you want to be mad at me I get it but please save it until after we know he's safe."

Sophie turned and walked away from Nate, staring at the ceiling and then the floor. He held his breath, waiting.

When she turned back to him her face was set. Not angry, just set. Determined. "We make sure he's safe. Make sure and then you and I are going to talk and then I'm going to go away for a little while. What happens between now and then will decide weather or not I come back afterwards." Nate nodded slowly. "Do you two have any other secrets you'd like to share now? Because first Eliot's Black Knight and now this? We're a team, Nate. You keep many more secrets and I won't be the only one leaving."

Nate was shared from having to respond when Parker came back in through the door. "Sorry Nate." She said with a wince. "I didn't even know he could be sneaky like that."

"It's okay Parker." Nate said rubbing his eyes. "We're thieves, we know how to disappear when we want to. Hardison's got fifty more minutes. Put what you have on hold and meet in the conference room then." He went to the kitchen on autopilot to get some coffee .

The neatly laid out line of Eliot's cooking knives left to air dry on the counter the night before (He could almost hear Eliot in his head telling him you don't put a five thousand dollar carving knife in a five hundred dollar dish washer) made him remind himself he was coming in here for coffee, not the thing he really wanted.

oOo

Parker followed Sophie out of the apartment and up the stairs, a little surprised to find her heading for Eliot's studio. The woman looked shell shocked and weary. Parker kinda got it a little. After Parker found out she'd asked Eliot what being in love was like and he'd told her it was a little like repelling down the side of a building.

Sophie defiantly looked like her system had been faulty. Parker kind of imagined this is what you'd look like if you fell off a sixty story building, well if you weren't all squished and bloody.

"I figured it out a couple weeks ago, after Eliot almost lost it on that job." Parker said as she stepped into the studio. Sophie had been standing in the middle of the room but turned to look at her expectantly. "I was just saying."

Then Sophie got she hadn't come to share words of wisdom. Parker was glad. Giving Eliot words of wisdom hadn't worked so well. He still wouldn't admit he was repelling figuratively. She guessed she wasn't that good at it.

Sophie sighed again, sinking into her chair. "I'd like to be alone Parker."

Parker nodded. When she fell off a figurative building and all her insides felt squished she wanted to be alone, but she also wanted company, and it was confusing.

With a small nod Parker went back downstairs, got Simon, and returned to Eliot's studio and put him on a table to the side. "If you talk to plants they grow better." Parker repeated what Hardison had told her. "Talking helps." She repeated again and left.

As she closed the door she saw Sophie tentatively reach out and touch one of the plant's leaves.

Maybe she wasn't so bad at this wisdom thing.

oOo

Everyone gathered back in the apartment a little while later, for once the usual noise and chatter non-existent, Eliot's chair ominously empty.

Without prompting Hardison began the briefing, bringing the picture of a blond haired, blue eyed woman hugging her two young children onto the screen. "The call to Eliot's cell came from Josephine Phillips. Due to the codes you all made me install on your cells phones I wasn't able to get a recording of the conversation." He gave Nate a pointed look.

Nate winced. They'd all wanted to make sure their privacy was kept and he'd made sure Hardison had put methods in place that would scramble the data of their calls so it couldn't be retrieved later. Sometimes precaution was a bad thing.

"I did pull up what information I could on her." Hardison said, continuing. "Josephine Phillips, married to Thomas Phillips, mother of Eliot Phillips ten and Marie Phillips Eight. They live in on Maine Street, Indiana County, Kentucky." Nate waited for Hardison to make a joke about that but nothing came. "Josephine is Thirty three years old, attended Kentucky State for three years but never graduated. No history of crime of theft or anything really. I did find out." A click brought up a picture of pretty a preteen girl and a stern looking teenage boy with the same blue eyes and blonde hair. "Turns out Josephine Phillips grew up Josephine Lawrence until she entered the foster system when she was twelve, records indicate her big brother, Spencer Lawrence, was the one who got the social workers to investigate. Apparently their step father had been increasingly interested in her. Turns out that wasn't all that was going on in that house. About two days after she was taken away the step-dad beat her mom and brother to death. They didn't find her brother's body until five years later."

He clicked to the next slide, showing the mug shot of a man. "Andrew Lawrence was tried and convicted for child abuse, murder, pretty much the whole nine yards. He was supposed to go away for life, but here's what I think is what caused the call. About six months ago he escaped a prison transfer and has been on the run since."

Nate clicked back a slide, looking at the picture of the boy and the girl. Something about it made his head hurt. There was something familiar here. "What's the connection to Eliot?" Nate asked.

"I've been looking but there's not a lot I can see. I know Eliot was in Kentucky while we were split up and it was right around the time Lawrence escaped prison so I'm thinking she might have hired him to take him out but… I don't know. She's not exactly rich and even if Eliot was working on an alternative revenue stream I don't see any stream that would make his rates so unless he was working pro bono…"

Nate considered the screen. "He might have been." Nate admitted, remembering back to Cairo when Eliot had told him a little about his childhood. A weight dropped in his stomach as pieces started fitting together. "What about the brother?" Nate asked, voice sounding a little hollow in his ears.

Hardison got on his computer and typed a little, making a face as he brought up a picture of an eleven or twelve year old boy with short blonde hair, and cold blue eyes. He stared back at the camera through a pair of black eyes, the frown on his face more of a grimace from a twice split lip. "Not a pretty story. Step father married the mother Danica when Spencer was seven. By the time he was eight he'd been in the hospital twice for various injuries. By the time he was twelve he'd been in and out nine more times. But turns out it isn't a coincidence that the town they lived in was called Lawrence, Andrew Lawrence's family owned the hospital, and most of the town, so nothing ever happened."

Hardison clicked around a little more. "The files were hard copy only but I got someone to scan them and e-mail me." He brought them up on the screen, scrolling down page after page of medical records before Hardison closed them. "I'll have a look at them if ya want but the person I talked to said if I wanted more information a couple of Spencer's friends had started a memorial scholarship fund in his honor. Apparently a couple of them were into journalism and had been trying to gather enough evidence to make everything stop."

A couple clicks more brought up a basic web-page with a banner that read "My Sister's Keeper".

"It's a scholarship fund for kids who've survived abusive homes. It's small but they give out a couple scholarships every year." Hardison clicked a link on the navigation bar leading to an "about us" page. "I just skimmed it but it's the sort of story lifetime would love. Abusive stepfather but the big brother remembers his real father always telling him it was his job to protect his little sister. In the seven years from when it starts to when he dies at fifteen he never once lets the man touch his sister. Takes plenty of beatings for it."

Hardison scrolls down. "I didn't have time to look through everything but there's a couple of links here to the evidence they collected. These here are audio files, for the three years they were trying to collect evidence they convinced Spencer to keep an audio journal of what was happening to him. They have a collection of clips here as sort of a summary."

Nate could feel his heart pounding, hear it in his ears. It couldn't be. They'd found the body. But all the facts were lining together.

"Play it."

Hardison clicked and a couple seconds later a somewhat annoyed thirteen year old boy with a southern accent started talking. There was something about that voice that made his stomach churn worse.

"Friday September 18th 1985. Is this thing on? This is so stupid."

Somewhere away from the recorder another voice spoke up. "Please, just do it Spence"

"okay… My name is Spencer. Just Spencer. Papers say my last name is Lawrence but I don't like it. It's my step dad's name."

"why don't you like him?"

"You know why Ames."

"Spencer…"

"Fine. He beats the shit outta me okay? Happy now? Want me ta spell it out for ya? Want me ta show the scars? This is stupid."

There was a short silence and then another voice added the date of wensday October 1st."

"Cops? Why would I go to the cops? They wouldn't do anything. That Man's a Lawrence. This is the town of Lawrence. Ain't a coincidence. That man could probably get away with killing me here. Cops wouldn't do me no good. But it's okay. I'm almost thirteen. Just five more years and I'll be outta there and I'll take my sister with me."

The next date said November 18th.

"My sister, Josephine though everyone calls her Joey, she's your typical kid sister. Looks upta me, hero worship and all. She's three years younger than me so I watch out for her, keep her safe from That Man you know? He's never laid a finger on her in five whole years. I'm doing my job right. I'm keeping her safe. That's whats important you know. Keeping my baby sister safe."

She can be a real brat sometimes though. You know how kids are. Like last week she was in her schools play. I missed one showing of it. Came to the other two. I missed one show and she wouldn't speak to me for like two days. But then she needed help with her math homework and suddenly all was right. Sometimes I think my sister is a little bit nuts."

"December 20th 1984. My mama's not around much. I mean she's always home scrubbing and cooking and keeping things the way they should but she isn't there you know? You can talk at her for an hour and she might hear two words your saying. When That Man's wailing on me? She's nowhere to be seen, even when she's standing there watching. Joey hates her almost as much as That Man but I just… I kinda miss her you know? I can remember back before That Man, back when I was like seven or somthin' she was always there. Even when she got a little distant, thinkin' about my dad and wonderin' when he'd come back to see her next she was still with us. That was my mama. This woman isn't. I just wish I could have my mama back."

My dad? You mean my real dad? I don't know. I've seen a couple pictures and I kinda remember him. He's never been around much. You see my mom… well she was kinda a wild woman. Had a lot of flings. Then this one guy came through town and even though he was married neither really cared. They had a fling and he left. Then mama got pregnant with me and well, she was barely scrapping by and that wasn't enough for a kid so she found him, somehow. He did right by her I guess, paid for her to live and take care of me. He even visited every few weeks for a couple of days. When mama got knocked up with Joey he started giving her more money, made room in his heart for Joey. All I really remember about him was what he always told me "Joey's your little sister. It's your job to protect her." But when mama got married to That Man she asked him to stop coming. I havn't seen him since."

"Feburary 9th 1985. I'm supposed to just be talking about the whole abuse thing an' all but I need to tell you'll this cause it's important. Yesterday I asked Ames to go bowling with me on Friday. I have everything ready. Joey's staying the night at a friends and That Man's going to be out of town all weekend. So just me 'n Ames and bowling and she said if she had a good time she might let me be her first kiss."

"Shut up Spence, you sound like a lovesick dog"

"oh well fuck you to Mike."

"February…umm. Twenty somethin'. I… I can't. I'm sorry I just can't do this. I just… I need a couple more days okay. Maybe. I just I don't wanna talk."

"June 2nd 1985. Yeah I get tired of it sometimes. I don't know if I can make the next four years in one piece. I'm so run down all the time. It always hurts. Sometimes I don't think it would be so bad if I could just go a couple of days without it hurting every once in awhile. But I have to do this. Joey's safe because of me. That's all that matters. That's all I care about."

"July 15th 1985. Ames' dad offered me a job at his stables, said I could bring Joey with me every time I came out so she was safe. He knows. Everyone knows but hes always tried to help you know. He said when I'm hurting too bad to work hard I can do easy stuff. It's nice… a little break from reality I think."

"November 25th. Ames' ma always fusses whenever I show up with new bruises, so pretty much every time I come over. I've started comin a half hour early cause she always end up draggin me back into the kitchen to "get a better look at". Then out comes the first aid kit and shes brewin tea and making faces and callin That Man names. It's nice. Even though Joey always gets annoyed because it's Her job to take care of me… she… she's like how mama used to be and she even told me I should call her Ma cause after all these years lookin' after me and my sis. I like it."

"January 21st 1986. Horses aren't like people. They're better. Maybe not as smart but they're gentler, simpler. You take care of them and they'll love ya. Theres this big ol' dame called Sunny, meanest bitch of a horse you never wanted to ride. But you talk to her right, treat her right? She's started treating me like I'm some col' of hers. Whenever I'm hurtin' bad she comes over, lips at my hair and won't let any of the other horses come near me. I… sometimes I tell her not ta worry, cause one of these days I'm going to get on her and just ride her into that sunset and never look back."

"April 26th 1986 I… I… they took Joey. It's for the best. I couldn't keep her safe much longer. She's in the system now and hopefully somewhere better than in our house. I just wish I could be with her to look after her. When they took her away… I don't know if she'll ever forgive me for sending her away.

I can… I can't stay here anymore. I just. I need to get out of here before he kills me. I don't have anywhere ta go but there has to be something right? There has to be something more for me out there. I can't stay here. I have to find freedom.

This will be my last recording. I'm leaving. I'm going somewhere else. I'll change my name. Try again. See how life wants to treat Eliot Spencer. I like the sound of that. Eliot Spencer."