(A/N – Sorry for the delay; unforeseen problems arose preventing me from working, but now I'm back and the ride is on once more. I promise we'll be seeing some action soon, too.)
Trust Issues
Chapter 12
Nate Ford wanted a drink. Everybody said drinking didn't help anything, but it sure seemed to him that he could bear the sight of the world a little better through a mild alcoholic haze. Brains were his stock-in-trade, and his drinking couldn't be good for them, but he did what he had to so he could keep going, keep using them.
He needed them now, more than ever. Nothing was making sense, and he was going to have to think his way to a resolution; not 'mind over matter' but intellect over mentality.
First, though, he had to establish safety to gather data and process everything.
That was a major challenge, considering the capabilities of his team.
He picked up some clothes at a discount store with, at best, closed circuit cameras if they were even working cameras at all. He ditched everything he wore and had with him, except cash as a necessity, on the assumption that Hardison had planted tracking devices on various items of his over time. It was the hacker's own particular way of protecting the family that he had developed the habit of tagging them in case of emergency.
Then he settled in a booth in a dingy coffee house, with a pint of Irish to modify the bitterness of the house brew, and thought.
His team doubted him, and he wasn't at all sure they weren't right.
When he looked at things coldly and logically, they didn't need him any more. Sophie not only held their respect better than he, she also had proven more than once that she could run the team on a job. Eliot could best keep them safe.
Of course, when things went south, he could rethink things fast and pull the job off anyway, but that was generally what brought extra danger to the team, and they seemed less and less accepting of the trade-off. Eliot and Sophie would be a lot quicker to pull the plug and keep everyone safe.
Was safety too low on his priorities? Was he obsessed with winning against their marks, to the point where he had become a danger himself? There had been an increase lately in comments questioning his self-control and suggesting that he was obsessing with himself and the win to the detriment of the team.
Surely Eliot was too sensible and perceptive to not know better than that. Nate's regular showboating to the mark after the takedown kept the focus of vengeful thoughts on him instead of the team. Eliot was familiar with that tactic, himself.
But what if the perception was that he was going further, that he was putting team members in danger simply to satisfy some ego craving run amuck? And again, what if he were the one who was in error, and he really was out of control?
Logically, if he were that badly off, he wouldn't be able to believe it of himself. If you're afraid you're crazy, that's the best evidence that you aren't.
'Too bad I can't fix this by telling Eliot that I worry I may be taking too many chances with the team's lives. But I can't do that, and I can't forget that he's not the only one who no longer has confidence in me. Still…' he had to think about himself some, at least, and it would be much easier to move on if he could get some closure on this phase of his life. Just not at the cost of his life.
If Eliot did believe he was a danger, could he actually have decided to eliminate Nate?
Now that the urgency of the situation had been eliminated he could look at that supposition calmly and logically as well.
Emotionally he both didn't want to believe it, and at the same time was terrified that it was true. Emotion was useless here. Mentally he had a hard time getting past the simple fact that a knife that came at him from Eliot's direction, with no one else close to Eliot, had ended up sticking in his chest. The mind could be fooled in so many ways, though…"
Nate moved his cup and saucer to one side and leaned over until his forehead was pressed against the tabletop. Then he lifted up a little and quietly pounded his head in frustration.
'Use your brains, mastermind. What other information do you have?'
There was what he'd heard over the ear bud.
'You call that informative? Hysterics from the dudes and snarkiness from Sophie.' No wonder Parker was confused! At least it had served the main purpose and let him know when they left the hospital, and that had let him make his move.
It also told him that the stress level was high.
'Okay, one of their own, even me, getting injured, and by violence when we weren't on a job, that's stressful. But the crisis was already past at that point, so why were they so keyed up? I'd given them the slip; that should be more frustrating than scary… But Parker.'
He'd been, he now realized, running on adrenalin and confusion when he made his break. Now that he was calmly considering, he realized that he hadn't fully assessed the reaction he had heard from Parker, and from Hardison, for that matter.
He recalled the scene in the hospital when he was hiding and listening to the two in the hallway:
"Eliot won't let anything happen to Nate, you'll see." Had been Hardison's words, he remembered. To which Parker had responded with a fear-filled sounding:
"But he's already hurt. What if we lose him?"
'God, how could I have disregarded what they were saying?' He shook his head, becoming angry with himself. 'Think about how both of them have reacted all along. They don't just not want to see me hurt. Parker says exactly what she means; she and Hardison at least really don't want me gone.'
Nate pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes and let his head drop back onto the edge of the booth partition.
"You okay, mister?"
Nate dropped his hands and straightened, feeling his heart pounding. A pale-skinned young woman in black clothing was standing there with a coffee pot in her hand.
"Uh, yeah, I'm just kind of tired," he responded. "Can I have a refill?"
"You look like crap, you know that?" She filled his cup. "You probably shouldn't be drinking so much coffee. You should go home and get some rest."
"Yeah," he agreed, "I probably should. I have to figure out what the hell is going on with me and my family."
She looked at him for a moment and then turned away. "Maybe you should go see them if you want to figure it out," she told him over her shoulder.
'Great. A Goth chick thinks I look like crap. And she just gave me good advice.'
He pulled the pint of Irish from his pocket and tipped a good splash into the cup.
'So now if I just leave and go into hiding, I'm abandoning them.' He didn't like that idea, and knew he was going to have to rethink his assumption that he had already made the best decision for the team.
'What about Sophie, then?' He gulped some coffee and nearly dropped the cup when he burned his mouth.
'I can't just go with the assumptions I've been making about her, either.' He thought about why he felt like she might have turned against him. The most glaring item was the Beck incident. Okay, so she had suspected him of being capable of committing the murder. Hadn't she also said something about how glad she was to know it wasn't true? She'd described her suspicions as 'one crazy moment'. If she had been less than sympathetic about his expressed discomfort with the team's willingness to suspect him, well, the whole conversation had started with one of her less-than-happy comments about his drinking.
His mind shifted to follow that well-worn track so easily he barely noticed. He could hardly complain about the objections to his drinking. There was no way Sophie or the rest of the team, or anyone could understand his willingness to bow to his addiction. It wasn't a good choice, sure, but it was the choice that let him keep going. All they saw, all there was any way for them to see, was that he spent a lot of time being drunk, and probably was more erratic when he was in that condition.
That wasn't getting him any closer to a solution, though. He dragged his thoughts back on track. Sophie was a less than perfect, but she had never pretended to be anything else. She was a grifter, not a nurse or some sort of therapist. But she really didn't judge him. She just let him know when she thought he was off course, and if she didn't like it when he drank there was probably more than a little bit of concern for his well-being in that.
Still, she did question his decisions more these days.
Okay, working with the team for three years kind of gave her that right. Had she ever actually done anything he could now point at and say 'This shows that she wants me gone'? Not even the way she tormented him with the secret of her real name suggested that. Like most things, he decided, it even suggested the opposite.
He suddenly realized that his thoughts were wandering, off the vital point, and becoming maudlin. Again. He was just so tired, his chest had long since settled into a very painful throbbing, and it was impossible to ignore how weak he was from the loss of blood he'd suffered.
'Time to find somewhere to sleep.' But where?
Inspiration hit. He could find a cheap hotel and maybe end up surrendering to his physical infirmity for days, or he could make a move that would put him in a position to see his team without exposing himself too much to discovery. And it would certainly guarantee that his survival instincts kept him fairly alert.
He scrambled to his feet, and then had to hold on to the table as a wave of dizziness swept him. After a few slow, deep breaths though he pushed away and walked through the exit and out onto the quiet side street. He reminded himself to keep avoiding the places that were most likely to have surveillance cameras.
That didn't interfere with his immediate plan. What he wanted now would be easily found in the less prosperous – and thus less monitored – part of town. He found a decrepit used clothing store and hunted out some of the most threadbare items they had, varying the sizes enough that he could layer for warmth. He made sure to get a hoodie with a good cord, and a ball cap with a slightly oversized brim. These were vital to his plan.
He also made sure the coat he selected was warm despite its shabby appearance, and that it had a couple of large inside pockets for what he purchased at his next planned stop.
It wasn't exactly a pleasure to walk into a low-rent liquor store and select bottles of cheap, poor quality whiskey. After all, he might be a drunk but he was also a connoisseur.
Finally, he ditched the outer clothing he had so recently switched to, and arrayed himself instead in his latest purchases. He distributed his remaining cash in multiple small amounts in various pockets and tucked most of the booze where it wasn't easily detected on his person. Then he put on the ball cap, pulled up the hoodie and, with his features largely obscured, headed for more familiar territory.
To be continued
