A/N: Holy *insert large string of words unsuitable for most human ears here, please* I killed Eliot! Ahh! What was I thinking? Oddly enough I'm even more surprised for the other person I killed. Well, not surprised so much as sad that I did that to them. And this still has a happy ending despite their deaths? Wow, I'm nuts! I feel worse for killing… I don't even have the heart to tell you just yet. Just keep reading and eventually you'll figure it out.
The next day the little team of thieves decided to practice their recon… on their mastermind. The three carefully followed their boss to an expensive restaurant out by the beach. Ashley, Damien, and Craig were all highly surprised to see their mastermind meeting a woman with long, blonde hair.
"Damien, what's going on?" Ashley demanded of her brother angrily, "Why can't we see anything?"
"Because I'm adjusting the audio," Damien retorted to his sister with a roll of his eyes, "I don't know about you, but I don't want to read lips while we're snooping."
"Shut up!" Craig ordered the bickering siblings angrily, "I'm trying to read what they're saying!"
"Hey Maggie," Alec smiled as he greeted his old friend with a hug, "I'm glad you could make it."
"Shouldn't I be the one saying that considering you rescheduled on me twice already," Maggie retorted back with amusement in her eyes.
"And I'm sorry about that," Alec grimaced at the reminder, "One of my kids decided he was going to be a big bad hacker at the absolute worst time!"
"And the time before?" Maggie countered cunningly at the man's simple reply.
"I… um… uh," Alec stumbled over his words as guilt filled his every sense at the sad truth of it all. "I sort of had a… um… meeting."
"You mean you just got back from a job?" Maggie growled at the man in irritation.
"Maggie, don't be like that," Alec begged of the blonde as he did a quick check of the surrounding areas for any sign of danger.
"I can't believe this!" Maggie huffed angrily, "Actually, I can. You've been pulling cons back to back for nearly three months now!"
"Maggie, I know," Alec waved off the guilt as he tried to calm his guest down. "Believe me I know! Those were just very special circumstances, but I'm on a break now and promise I won't be taking any more jobs for the next two weeks at the very least."
"At the very least?" Maggie scoffed at the mastermind's answer, "You should take off the month and lay low! It's not healthy putting yourself and your team at risk like that!"
"You're right!" Alec nodded at the much deserved tongue lashing, "You are completely right! I need to stop acting like a drill team captain and start acting like a worthy leader, I understand. I'm sorry for having to reschedule on you for the second time and I appreciate that you're looking out for me, I do. I really do!"
"Yeah, but?" Maggie rolled her eyes playfully at the familiar words being tossed at her so nicely.
"But they're my team and I have to keep them prepared for anything and everything," Alec reported with a sad smile crawling upon his lips. "They need me to push them to be everything they can be and beyond that. They need to learn how to stay on their toes just as much as they need to learn how to take a break when they need it. I promise you that they aren't going to be doing anything except being lazy teenagers for the next two weeks. Longer, if I can help it."
"You swear?" Maggie raised a brow at the mastermind's unusual answer.
"Cross my heart and everything," Alec promised with a white grin to help seal the deal.
"You're just like him," Maggie shook her head at the man before her. "You know that?"
"What?" Alec titled his head at the taken aback comment sent his way.
"There's so much of him in you," Maggie observed with sadness in her eyes, "if I didn't know any better…"
"He…" Alec began quietly at the comment, "Thank you. I don't know if that's a compliment or a criticism but thank you anyway."
"Well it's not a criticism," Maggie laughed at the mastermind's reply, "not yet anyway. Keep going the way you are and it will be."
"Yes mam," Alec saluted with a sad smile at the careful warning.
The two had a comfortable moment of silence where they allowed the past a chance to wash upon them.
"I see her more," Maggie remarked bitterly after a tiny moment of hesitation, "Especially when you're at work."
"Really?" Alec demanded with hope glistening in his eyes.
"Oh yes," Maggie nodded with a smile at the way he beamed at the news, "She definitely did a great job in shaping you."
"My Nana used to tell me that nobody would ever be able to shape you like a mama bear raising her babies," Alec smiled at the conversation's turn. "It took her years before she would even think about admitting that the rule also applied to all of the women in my life."
"Some more than others," Maggie agreed with a gentle nod.
"I remember when she died," Alec sputtered towards his confidant with a smile still on his face, "my Nana… Well, I thought my world was going to end without Nana there whispering in my ear."
"But she helped you through it?" Maggie pressed the way she had been taught worked best.
"They all did," Alec nodded with shame and pain starting to settle his features, "She just helped me see what was right in front of my eyes."
"Have you…" Maggie paused as she visibly weighed whether or not her next question should be asked, "Have you talked to the oth… her at all since the incident?"
"I've kept tabs on her, yes," Alec answered his friend honestly without a moment of hesitation. "I've had Wesley send her a basket of flowers on more than one occasion."
"But have you actually talked to her?" Maggie demanded of the mastermind with a frustrated sigh, "Have you actually physically given her access to hearing your voice and knowing that you're fine?"
"She doesn't want to talk to me, Maggie," Alec shook his head at the thought, "not after everything I've done."
"You didn't do anything wrong," Maggie hissed at the man with sympathy shimmering in her eyes, "It wasn't your fault…"
"I don't want to talk about it," Alec shook off the conversation just as the waiter came by to deliver their meals, "let's eat before the food gets cold."
"And there he is again," Maggie bit back with a cold glare as she joined the mastermind in eating.
The pair continued to eat in silence while the three young thieves watched from their perch in confusion.
"How are we not getting this?" Ashley demanded of her brother angrily, "You said that the button cam would work?"
"It does," Damien huffed out as he kept typing away, "It is! Look, it's giving out a signal! He must have figured out how to jam it is all!"
"Or he found it and left it in his car," Craig shrugged in response.
"What is he even doing with her?" Ashley sighed in frustration, "I mean look at her! She's obviously somebody he really cares about, but she's got grey hair! She's too old to be his girlfriend if only for that reason alone!"
"Maybe he has a thing for cougars," Damien retorted in amusement at his sister's need for drama, "Besides she can't be that old if she looks like a fox!"
"I'd say she's a mentor," Craig stated his opinion for the others to observe. "Look at the way he listens to her. You don't listen to anybody like that unless they taught you something invaluable on countless occasions. Plus, she's gazing at him as if she were looking at her favorite nephew or son."
"Then what's with the tension?" Ashley demanded as she nodded her head at her boyfriend's accurate and plausible explanations.
"Maybe it's about his big mysterious past," Damien chirped in with his conspiracy theorist brain on high alert, "Maybe she's in on the big secret."
"Or maybe you've watched one too many crime dramas again," Ashley chuckled at her brother's thoughts.
"Or he's actually onto something of value," Craig sighed as he read the tension and speculated accordingly, "Look at the way she keeps monitoring him with a worried brow. She's seeing somebody else in him and it's making her think about what topic to approach next."
"You think that maybe he's the son of her ex-husband and that could be their relationship?" Damien speculated with a sarcastic smirk.
"It looks like she's seen somebody else go through the same things and they hit the bottom pretty hard," Ashley observed as she noted the signs, "Look at the way she keeps changing the subject. She recognizes somebody else in him."
"That actually sounds right on," Craig glanced at his girlfriend in surprise, "Nice job, babe."
"I'm learning," Ashley smiled at her boyfriend's fabulous compliment.
"So," Damien interrupted the moment with a playful grin, "I was right about the past thing, right? I get the credit for figuring it out, right?"
"Shh," Craig ordered as he noticed the subtle movement in the blonde woman's posture, "They're about to start talking again."
"Are you seeing anybody?" Maggie questioned as a way to start up a new conversation.
"Maggie?" Alec rolled his eyes at the woman's simple comment.
"What?" Maggie acted confused by her comment's offense, "It's a simple question."
"You know I haven't been seeing anybody!" Alec growled at the woman angrily, "I would never do that to… never mind!"
"You should talk to her," Maggie suggested smoothly.
"Maggie…" Alec warned with danger in his eyes.
"I'm not saying that you should propose to her or anything drastic," Maggie sputtered as if she couldn't see the daggers being tossed her way, "I'm just saying you two should catch up over coffee."
"I don't want to talk about it," Alec slammed his fist down in agitation. "I just want to forget… everything."
"Forgetting the past isn't going to work, Alec," Maggie retorted sadly, "Otherwise you'd never learn from it."
"I can't do this," Alec spit out as he rose from his chair and started to leave.
"She asks about you," Maggie gasped out before she could stop herself.
"You've seen her?" Alec whipped his head around in complete surprise of the new curveball.
"Don't even pretend you didn't know," Maggie ordered sharply with a raised eyebrow in challenge of the play.
"What does she say?" Alec demanded as he sat back down quite eagerly.
"You expect me to tell you after that?" Maggie demanded back with the upper hand.
"I'm sorry, Maggie," Alec sighed at his rude behavior, "I'm still working on controlling my emotions for any given situation. I'm not a grifter. You know that!"
"I remember that she taught you to behave better than that," Maggie raised her eyebrows higher in resignation of the old habit.
"I'm sorry," Alec repeated with a bowed head, "It won't happen again, I promise. Please… what did she say?"
"She wants you to come visit instead of sending your butler over with flowers all the time," Maggie accepted the apology with careless ease. "She misses you just as much as you miss her."
"I can't go back, Maggie," Alec shook his head at the very idea of it, "Not just yet anyway."
"You didn't do anything wrong," Maggie remarked sadly, "You shouldn't punish yourself for that kind of a mistake. Heck, I thought the same thing you did until…"
"Don't," Alec begged with the most helpless eyes she had ever seen.
"It was a lovely funeral," Maggie commented woodenly, "Gorgeous really. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen."
"He would have been proud," Alec agreed bitterly, "It's just a shame that… that it had to be that way."
"That was his own guilt he had to deal with," Maggie replied smoothly to stop the thoughts in their greedy tracks, "He chose to end it that way. It's not your fault."
"I just feel like I could have done something," Alec twisted his hands in irritation, "Maybe if I paid more attention to him instead of concentrating on..."
"Hardison!" Maggie snapped in fear of the next string of babble, "Eliot made his choice. Now, we have to live with it. Believe me, there was nothing you could have done to save any of them."
"But I could have noticed the signs," Alec muttered completely helpless at the memory of his best friend, "I could have asked…"
"It wasn't your fault!" Maggie shook her head at the ex-hacker's worries, "Just like what happened to Nate wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done for either of them."
"Yeah," Alec nodded at the civilian woman's comments, "Yeah, you're right. You're totally right! I didn't have any control over the situation until it was already too late. It wasn't my fault!"
"It wasn't," Maggie encouraged her ex-husband's hacker with a gentle touch to the arm, "You can't control the world. That was always the one lesson he refused to teach you."
"And now it's my job to teach it to my kids," Alec agreed as he gently sniffled back his manly allergens and took comfort in his companion's words.
"Speaking of your kids," Maggie smiled at the needed change of subject matter, "Did you know that they have been spying on you ever since you arrived here?"
"Oh, have they?" Alec smiled at the change in topic as he pulled out a pen and made a show of pulling out his tie, "I had absolutely no idea they were even watching."
"Uh-oh!" Craig cringed as he read the words pouring from his boss' lips.
"Uh-oh?" Damien questioned with wide eyes.
"That's never a good sign," Ashley gasped as she shared a worried look with her brother.
Just then Alec clicked his pen and the monitor started to get a good visual of the person in front of him and their mastermind.
"Hello lady and gentlemen," Alec smiled into the camera ever so viciously, "Are we enjoying the show?"
"I told you it worked," Damien commented in lieu of what else to say.
"Why don't ya'll come on over here to catch up on all the Intel that you missed?" Alec proposed with an obvious order to his voice that knew it would not be ignored.
"Well," Craig sighed as he stared at his boss waving them over and gaining attention, "We're screwed."
"With a capital Q," Damien nodded as the thief and hitter shared a look of confusion at the boy's strange comment.
"Any time now people," Alec ordered from his spot at the table as he kept waving his team to come forward.
"Alec, be nice," Maggie giggled into her coffee cup as she watched the three teens walk across the street with amusement at their frightened faces.
"Hey gang," Alec smiled when his teammates finally were within earshot of all the patrons at the restaurant. "Have a seat. Come on, join us. Don't be shy now, come along!"
"Oh you're awful," Maggie cackled into her cup at the pure look of humiliation on the teens' faces.
"Guys," Alec greeted them with a flashy smile before he kindly held out his hand to introduce his brunch companion, "meet my very good friend Dr. Collins."
"Please, call me Maggie," Maggie ordered as she held out her hand and began to play along. "Dr. Collins is when I'm working."
"Hello… Maggie," Craig took the offered hand and performed a gentle bow as he introduced himself, "My name is Craig Hoffer and allow me to introduce my girlfriend Ashley Phillips…"
"And I'm Damien," Damien offered as he kindly pushed the two aside and offered up his hand with a charming smile, "I'm the brother."
"Of Craig?" Maggie questioned of the boy as she tried not to laugh too much at the obvious intention of flattery to get out of trouble.
"No, the ugly one," Damien proudly explained with a vigorous handshake before he realized just how bad that was to say.
"Open mouth insert foot," Alec commented as the redhead kindly bashed her brother's shoulder for such a disgraceful comment before she put on the charm and offered up her hand.
"It's nice to meet you, Dr. Collins," Ashley stated with a wide smile that looked like it hurt, "Maggie, excuse me. Alec has told us… absolutely nothing about you."
"Like why you're here," Damien added in helpfully when his sister was safely seated.
"Or what you're up to," Craig completed with a nice shrug of the shoulders.
"Wow," Maggie smirked at the way the three were acting, "I see you inherited his masterminding power of instant loyalty too. I am impressed."
"Well, I do my best," Alec grinned at the compliment with a quick adjustment of his tie.
"Oh my god he's smiling!" Damien gasped at the odd feature, "And it's real!"
"Seriously, dude?" Craig stared at the young hacker in complete disbelief.
"Please ignore him," Ashley smiled impossibly wider in distraction as she smacked her brother on the thigh for that one, "We haven't finished training him yet."
"As you can see their manners are still a work in progress," Alec commented as that happy smile continued to conform to his face.
"But you're absolutely right they are just riddled with potential," Maggie squealed as she observed each one with a careful eye, "How did you do it?"
"Practice," Alec replied with a comedic flare the teens had never seen before.
"I'm not sure…" Craig began to speak as he noticed something odd with the way they were talking.
"Let me guess?" Maggie begged of the mastermind in interruption before another word could be spoken to even guess who this weird woman could be.
"By all means," Alec offered with a wave of his hand and a happy grin as the three were pinned under his friend's microscopic inspection.
"Craig is skinny but muscular so he has to be the thief." Maggie observed with a well-trained air, "Ashley may be a girl but the scars on her fingers and the way she bounces on her feet even while sitting just scream hitter. And Damien over here, well, he just says whatever's on his mind like somebody else I used to know, but the way he's coddling that computer is an obvious sign that he is indeed the hacker of your bunch."
"I do not coddle my computer!" Damien complained as he pulled his computer up closer to his chest only to prove the blonde woman's point even further.
"Nicely done, I am impressed," Alec golf-clapped the woman's amazing skill with absolute sincerity in his every step.
"How did she…?" Ashley gasped in confusion.
"She's a thief," Craig nodded in acceptance.
"No, I verify art for a living," Maggie replied with a simple shrug of false disappointment, "So hitter, hacker, thief, mastermind… hey, you're missing a grifter!"
"Very funny, Maggie," Alec glared at the woman with spiteful eyes.
"We don't need a grifter," Damien retorted with a disgruntled huff, "We're cool all on our own."
"We can take care of business," Ashley huffed with a show of confidence.
"We make do," Craig shrugged in pure honesty at the comment.
"You know," Maggie lined the mastermind with a simple look, "I know this grifter…"
"No, grifters," Alec retorted in his usual, icy tone, "End of discussion."
"He's very touchy about grifters," Damien commented simply.
"They can't be trusted because they lie all the time," Ashley shrugged her shoulders in complete apathy over the situation, "I wonder why."
"It wouldn't hurt to have one…" Craig mumbled guiltily as he crumbled under the vicious glare of his employer.
"No grifters!" Alec informed the team with a powerful glare and sneer combination.
"They don't know why," Maggie observed with a look of pure shock on her face, "do they?"
"It's nothing they need to know," Alec shrugged in indifference at the confused looks his teammates were giving him.
"What do you mean?" Ashley demanded with hurt on her face, "What don't we know?"
"It's not my place to say," Maggie pointed out with fearful eyes turned on the mastermind in front of her.
"Well, Maggie, it's getting late," Alec stated without a look at his nonexistent watch, "We should probably get you back to the house if we want to get you on that plane in time."
"Wait, who is she if she's not one of us?" Craig demanded defensively.
"She is one of us," Alec stared at his thief impassively as always.
"But she's a civilian," Damien pointed out in confusion, "And what is she to you anyway? What's your relationship to each other?"
"She's my friend," Alec replied with just a touch of gruffness, "That's our relationship."
"Yep," Maggie smiled despite the frosty tension, "You're exactly like my ex."
"Ha!" Damien cheered to the surprise of everybody, "I totally called it! She's his dad's ex-wife! Score one for the D-man!"
"Now, see what you did," Alec pointed towards the young hacker in complete disbelief, "You gave the boy false confidence. Now I have to stop him from going after the Pentagon again!"
"I'm not correcting the statement, Alec," Maggie shook her head as the three thieves stared at the retreating couple unsure of what to do, "Are you guys coming or not?"
"You mean…" Damien stared at the woman as if she had three heads, "To his house?"
"We've never been to his house before," Ashley explained for her brother with another one of her frightening smiles.
"We were never invited," Craig shrugged in explanation.
"Seriously?" Maggie demanded of the mastermind in complete shock.
"Fine," Alec rolled his eyes at the woman's hint, "Come on guys! As the lady says, you coming or what?"
The three thieves grinned with white teeth and red gums bared in bliss. They nodded their heads yes and hurried towards the car in eager anticipation of their newest exploits. The art expert just laughed at the kids' excitement while the mastermind glared.
"Sophie was a bad influence on you," Alec commented as he kindly opened the door for her.
"Thanks," Maggie smiled brightly as she helped herself into the vehicle.
"Who's Sophie?" Damien demanded the moment the mastermind had entered the car.
Alec didn't even dignify that with a response as he glared at his friend some more before pulling out of the parking lot. The car raced off towards the mastermind's splendid mansion with three excited thieves humming in the back seat, a very grumpy and annoyed mastermind in the driver's seat, and a very amused and worried art verification expert in the passenger's seat.