A/N: So glad to see so many people are still reading this. Sad to say its almost over, just a couple of chapters to go, but I hope you enjoy anyway :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 7

Lucille had been replaced and redesigned more times than anyone could count. The latest incarnation of Hardison's van / BFF was all kitted out to take the entire family wherever they needed to go. Carrie, Frankie, Ruby, and the twins all had their own special seats, the elder two in back since they were old enough to be trusted now, Ruby in front between her parents, and the twins right behind. However, whilst the youngest three were in their assigned seats today, the older kids had opted to ride with Uncle Eliot in his truck.

The whole joint family was headed out to Maggie's place, convoy style, with Eliot (Frankie and Michael beside him, and Carrie riding in the flat bed) following behind Hardison. Eliot wouldn't have allowed anybody else to travel in such a way, but Carat Hardison was her mama's daughter in style, grace, and aptitude. She loved the wind in her hair and the thrill of a bumpy ride down the highway as much as she adored technology. In these ways she was the perfect Hardison-Parker combo.

"Why can't I ride in back too?" Frankie whined some.

"Because last time we let you, there was an incident," his father told him via comms, with such an emphasis and 'don't mess with dad' tone, that his son immediately dropped the subject.

The kids were not usually allowed to wear comms but since this was technically a job that involved them, the adults relented, just this once. Needless to say the littlest kids were still denied earbuds, lest they suddenly decide to start one of their playfights and ended up pushing the things too far into their ears or swallowing them or something.

"You do not want that thing getting into your brain... or your stomach," Parker had advised them sternly. "So no comms for you three."

In Ruby, Flo, and Gil's defence, they didn't really argue, especially not when Uncle Eliot told them they were to have the very important role in this heist of staying in the van and keeping guard of it when they got to Aunt Maggie's house. They were too young to realise what a get out that was, Eliot wondered how much longer they'd all get away with stuff like that. At seven and ten years old, they were already smart cookies, but then look at their parents and it wasn't altogether surprising.

"This is crazy," said Michael then, shaking his head. "I still can't believe Uncle Nate got this mad about a stupid kiss."

"Uncle Nate got mad because it wasn't just a stupid kiss," Eliot reminded him, eyes flicking to his son and then back to the road. "Right?"

In the back of the truck, Carrie kept quiet, for maybe the first time in her life, listening to see what Michael might say in response. She knew Irene felt way more for Michael than just physical attraction and whilst she was pretty certain he felt the same, she couldn't actually be sure. He never said it, but then guys didn't tend too.

"I don't know," the older boy shrugged his shoulders, and Carrie could imagine it even if she couldn't see. "How do you know if you're in love?"

Frankie started singing along to the radio then, turning his face towards the passenger side window. Michael might've laughed if his own question hadn't been so serious. Poor F-Bomb. When puberty really hit him, life was going to get crazy interesting. Right now, the boy could just be such a kid still. Michael couldn't blame him for wanting to stay that way. His life had sure been simpler before he developed these feelings for Irene.

"Love's not something you can just explain, son," Eliot told him, feeling as awkward as he sounded no doubt.

"I think it is," Parker piped up over the comms. "Love is caring about people, so much that you'd pretty much die for them," she said straight out like Parker still said most things, even now she was older. "With people in love, there's the sex stuff too, obviously…"

"Parker!"

Eliot's growl of her name was almost perfectly in synch with Hardison's yelp of the same.

"What?" she asked, as if she didn't know – maybe she didn't.

"Eeeew," Ruby squirmed in her seat.

"Mom, please don't mention sex," Carrie told her straight out. "You'll blow Frankie's little mind right up... maybe mine too," she added, almost physically wincing.

As grown up as the eldest Hardison child could be, she still didn't need to think about her Mom & Dad doing it, not ever!

"I think what Parker means," Hardison tried then, "Is that being in love is like no other feeling, and yeah, it's about caring and sharing, and it's about, er... physical attraction in a way, but only you know for sure if Irene is the one for you, brah" he told his 'nephew'. "Would you go to the end of the world just for her? Would you do anything, and I mean, anything just to see her smile?"

"Would you die for her?" Eliot asked right out. "Kill for her?"

It was enough to register shock in Michael's eyes when his father looked at him, but only a small amount. He knew well enough the kind of things his father was capable of, the kinds of things he'd done. He knew that back in the day he'd done those things for bad reasons and now he did them for good. No reason was as good as the family he loved like no other, those he felt related to even though only Michael was his blood.

"Yeah," said the teen after a moment, his voice a whisper that he never intended. "Yes, I do love her," he added more forcefully then.

Eliot smiled, and so did Hardison, Parker, and most especially Carrie, though nobody was back there to see.

"For what it's worth, Michael," she said loud enough that the wind flying past her didn't drown her out. "I'm pretty sure she feels exactly the same."

"It doesn't always feel like it when she's slapping my face or throwing things at my head," he replied, though there was a smile on his face and laughter in his voice that even his 'cousin' could make out at this range.

"Like Momma, like daughter," Eliot chuckled, taking the next left turn behind Lucille.

Just a few more miles to go.


"I know what you're going to say," said Nate sullenly before Sophie had even managed to sit down next to him.

She had caught up to him in the park a few blocks over from Maggie's place. It hadn't taken much figuring out. This hour of the morning all the bars and pubs were closed, so he either had to find a stray convenience store that sold booze or lift a bottle from Maggie's place. A glance at the drinks stand on her way out of her friend's front door told her the latter was true, and then it was just finding a lonely out of the way place where Nate might go to think. The park was often a sanctuary whenever he went wandering. She wondered vaguely if he felt closer to his father there, or maybe Sam, perhaps both. She never asked for fear of the painful past. Right now, Sophie was more worried about the future.

"I doubt that," she replied to his statement, as she sat down on the next swing over, still managing to look like a lady somehow. "You know I can understand you being protective of Irene. I can even understand you getting angry when you found out she had her first real intimate moment with a boy," she said as carefully as she could, "but this? It's beyond a normal father's behaviour…"

"Is it?" asked Nate waving the bottle of Jack in his hand as he did so. "You really think I'm so crazy just because I wanna protect my daughter? My baby girl?" he asked loudly but not really viciously. "That boy might hurt her"

"He's not that boy, Nate," she chided. "He's Michael, Eliot's son…"

"Yeah, Eliot's son," her husband echoed, raising the bottle as if in a toast before taking a long swig. "That's a real comfort, Soph, knowing my daughter wants to date the boy we know so well. Who we know has no plans for college or education. Who wants to run away to the army just as soon as he graduates!" he yelled some more, with extra arm waving for good measure as the swing rocked back and forth beneath him.

"I don't call what he wants to do running away," Sophie argued though in a much more reasonable tone than her husband was using. "People do make a career out of the army. It makes men out of boys. It's a noble thing to want to do."

Nate humphed out a noise that scoffed at her words, though he didn't go on to explain himself until he'd taken another long drink.

"And what happens when he gets himself shot or blown to hell, huh?" he asked crossly. "What happens to Irene who's heart-broken and forced to grieve at her age? I don't want that for her!"

"Nobody wants that, Nate," Sophie snapped at him. "Nobody ever would, but injury and death, it's a part of life. We know that better than anyone. We also know about risks taken for the greater good," she impressed upon him, reaching for his shoulder, trying to make him look when he tried to turn away. "Nate, there's a chance that any one of us could end up hurt or dead when we do the jobs we do. Parker on a high ledge, me getting close to a mark, Eliot when he fights. Hardison, you, Tara, Maggie, all of us. We risk ourselves for the greater good. How can you judge Michael for wanting to do the same in his own way?"

Such an impassioned speech, Nate ought to have been impressed, especially when he met his wife's eyes and saw how genuine she was being. The grifter was good, the best in the world, he knew, but when she was being honest and true, that was when she could really break his heart if he let her. The real problem for Nate was that he already knew he was fighting a losing battle. That wouldn't stop him ploughing on regardless of course, fuelled on as he was by the booze in his system, the level of which was rising at an alarming rate as he took another drink from the bottle.

"So he's a saint for wanting to join the forces? Good for him!" he said with some sarcasm. "That doesn't make him so great. Michael Roberts-Spencer, product of a dead mother and a father that sleeps with anything in a skirt."

"Don't you dare," Sophie warned then, getting up fast when Nate staggered to his feet, spinning him around to face her when he tried to shy away again. "Eliot is better than that. He hasn't … dated that way since Michael arrived in our lives, and you know it," she reminded him. "I know he's not a saint, far from it, but then which one of us is? You? Not bloody likely!"

Nate moved to stumble away, drinking deep from his almost empty bottle but Sophie was having none of it.

"Don't you walk away from me," she told him angrily, turning him back around. "I'm not finished!" she said definitely, keeping a hold on him by handfuls of his coat. "Eliot is a good man. He has dedicated his life to keeping us safe, all of us, the team and the children. He's been looking over Irene's shoulder since the day she was born, and he has raised Michael to be a fine young man that respects women."

"That doesn't change the fact that I don't want that kid dating my daughter!" Nate boomed.

"She's my daughter too, in case you've forgotten," Sophie argued. "And right now, our daughter is hurting, probably so is Michael, and everyone else you made us leave behind yesterday!" she continued to yell, shaking the man she loved until some sense appeared in the shadow of this idiot he had become in the space of twenty four hours. "Please, tell me, Nate, what are you really doing this for?"

There was a long pause in which Nate, who was almost doubled over with the force of her pulling at his coat and the effects of the alcohol, did nothing but stare unseeing at the ground beneath his feet. There was a long unbearable pause, until he finally confessed.

"I'm… I'm terrified," he admitted then, tears apparent on his face as he righted himself as best he could and met Sophie's eyes at last.

"What?" she gasped, the frustration that had bubbled inside of her dissipating in a moment, sending tears from her own eyes skidding down her flushed cheeks.

"I'm terrified," he repeated, swallowing hard right after. "Sophie, she's… she's my little girl. You and she are all I really have that are mine to, to protect and… and if I screw up, if I let bad things happen, and I lose either of you… I…"

The words went away. The mastermind, usually so clever and articulate, was now a sobbing mess of a child as Sophie took him into her arms and soothed him as she might a crying child.

Now she understood. This wasn't even really about Irene or Michael, not at all. It was about protecting their family from the worst that might happen. Her talk with Maggie fresh in her mind, Sophie knew this was really about Nate never truly getting over losing Sam, and being so afraid that he might yet lose Irene in some way.

"Hey, listen to me," she whispered, holding him tight, fighting the emotion thick in her throat. "The only way you could lose Irene right now is by acting like you have been. Telling her she can't be with a man that... that she might just love."

Nate knew she was right, of course he did, but the fear wouldn't go away, and he wondered if it ever really would or should. In any case, he couldn't answer right now. He just continued to hold on tight to his wife, letting the bottle drop from his hand, now unnecessary to ease his pain. Sophie would help him make things right somehow. She always did, no matter what. He should have seen that sooner.

To Be Continued…