I apologize for the delay in posting. Flu running through the house combined with end-of-term grading that had to be finished first, real life just got in the way. Thank you to McParrot for the writing lesson; hopefully this is an indication of that lesson. Thanks also to Talia, LadyDeb, Veritas6, Honeybee and all the other great constant reviewers and story-following folk!
New York City. He was home. Stefano sighed inwardly and let the sun-filled sight of the city skyline wash over him with warmth. For the past several years of his life he'd split his time between New York and Cardiff, and when he was in Cardiff it was always for work, but here in New York he'd worked and played. He had a few friends here, not that he'd be calling them this trip, and he had places he liked to go just because they felt good: coffee shops, parks, a jazz club or two, and the libraries and museums. This was home.
It was late afternoon, and Jack had been asleep most of the drive, which was good because Stefano didn't know how much rest was going to be available after tonight. Jack had insisted that he had a contact that could help them get a passport for Esther in a fake name, but it meant visiting a part of New York City that Stefano wasn't terribly familiar with, and adding New York to the mix of protecting Jack made things just a bit harder. Jack had consented to let Stefano pick the area where they spent the night on their arrival, agreeing that meeting his own contact during the day would be better than surprising him at night. So Stefano drove into the city content with the fact that if he got Jack and Esther settled in a hotel for tonight, they could face tomorrow with a better chance. They had one stop to make, and then he could get them ensconced in a hotel until tomorrow.
He drove, feeling an electricity begin to course through his veins the further into the city he got. He was here for the culmination of his life's work. Get Jack and Esther through New York and back to Jack's home turf of Wales and things would be better. Not over, but better.
["What is your charge, son, in your view?" his father asked gravely to a twenty-one year-old Stefano. They sat in the kitchen of the Colosanto estate in Nevada, just before Stefano was to leave for New York for the first time. "My charge is to be ready to step in and protect Captain Harkness once the Families make their move against him," he replied with confidence. He knew his job. "For how long?" his father continued. Stefano had to think about this one. It was rarely discussed, and all he had for an answer was an assumption. "Well, until he's safe again. When the Families have been defeated." And his father shook his head with a smile. "No, son. That's not quite right." Stefano was puzzled. "Think of it this way, instead," his father said gently, "You must protect Captain Harkness until the threat the Families introduce is neutralized and defeated. This may or may not lead to the defeat of the Families altogether. Their reach is long and tendril-like. We don't know what they're playing at, but we know it's going to involve him. We also know that he has to survive because he's a protector himself. One the planet depends on him whether they know it or not. Protect him, Stefano, the moment he becomes vulnerable and until he regains his strength and defeats the threat that makes him vulnerable. If that means defeating the Families, then that's a bonus." Stefano nodded. It still seemed very fluid to him. One thing at a time is what he figured, so New York City and monthly trips to Cardiff to watch the heroic Captain were next for him, and he was excited.]
Stefano found his way back to Little Italy in lower Manhattan and drove them to Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, a place he had visited often as a child. It was late afternoon, so children were playing at the colorful playground and some older folks were puttering in the community garden they passed. Stefano drove around the park and pulled the car gently next to a meter and shut it off. Esther looked confused, but Stefano reassured her it was fine. "We're going to meet a couple of people here. They need to meet you because they're going to help protect you. New York City is a busy place, so I arranged for a couple more sets of eyes to be watching while we're here. We'll meet them and then head to the hotel." Esther nodded and reached back to wake Jack from his slumber.
"Jack, wake up. Stefano's making us be social," she said with a wink at Stefano. Jack rubbed his face wearily.
"That wasn't a very productive afternoon for me, huh?" he noted.
Stefano objected, "Just what you needed, if you ask me, Captain. Now we're here." He saw Jack look around out the windows and heard him draw a sharp breath.
"Little Italy," Jack murmured.
Stefano nodded and he noticed Jack clenching his fists. "I'm going to introduce you to one of my cousins and an associate, okay? They're not going to stay with us, but they'll be tailing us and adding eyes while we navigate the city over the next couple days. Once we leave for Wales we'll be on our own again." Jack nodded and Stefano opened his car door with a grin, "Come on, I'll show you around my city."
The three of them climbed out of the car, stretching their stiff joints and looking around. Jack still moved stiffly, and Stefano led them across the street to what looked like an old church sitting at the edge of the park, away from the hustle of the park patrons. No one seemed to be hanging around the red-brick church with the black iron fence, and Stefano led them around the corner of it to a patch of grass and trees with a bench. Sitting on the bench were two men, around Stefano's age, and they stood when they caught sight of him. Stefano stayed near Jack and Esther, ever the bodyguard, but he held his hand out to his cousin, who approached with a smile.
"Carlos! Good to see you again," Stefano said, glad to see his tall cousin and thinking fondly of the days the two of them used to spend Christmases together hiding from the grown-ups. His grin faded, though, when Carlos stepped up to shake his hand and said firmly, "Ah, Stefano. You brought the Captain to us, just as we asked you to do. Good work." As soon as this sentence passed Carlos' lips, a third man stepped from the shadows of the church with a chloroform cloth and wrapped it around Jack's face, and before Stefano could realize what was happening, Jack crumpled to the ground with a grunt and Esther was grabbed from behind and an arm thrust across her face to muffle her sudden scream. Stefano whirled, trying to take the legs out from under his cousin, but another man stepped from the shadows and clubbed him across the face, slamming him into the ground and twisting his arms behind him violently. He felt his shoulder pop out of its socket and stifled a groan, trying to steady his own breathing to take stock of the situation. He was hauled to his feet by the thug who tackled him, and his cousin was standing back, a cruel laugh tumbling from his mouth.
"You should see your face, cousin!" he said mirthfully. "Not how you planned this to go, no?"
Stefano struggled for a moment as Jack was hauled away, unconscious, to a sedan that had driven up to the curb near the church. He took stock of the man holding him and the man holding Esther, and decided to bide his time for a moment. His anger, though, was unhinged. "What the hell are you doing, Carlos! You're a fucking traitor! How can you do this to our family!" His own voice sounded rough and thunderous in his head and he saw his cousin visibly cringe as he took Stefano's verbal onslaught.
Stefano continued, unable to stop himself and calm down, and the hot, white pain in his shoulder just fueled the rage in his voice. "You sold us out? How the fuck do you sell out generations? Your father would be disgraced, and shit, you're not just fucking with our family, you're fucking with the world! You idiot!" This was the end, if they couldn't get back to Jack. This was the end and he'd failed if he couldn't get back to Jack, and this thought made him nauseous. He knew they didn't have a lot of time because the Families just wanted Jack dead at this point. They were done with his blood; they just needed him out of the way. If Carlos had turned Jack over to the Families then Stefano only had until they got to him before everything would be over. He took a deep breath, forcing the creeping nausea down his throat. He needed information and he needed to calm down.
"I'm the idiot?" Carlos snarled. He stalked right up to Stefano's face, close enough for Stefano to breathe in his cousin's heavy laugh. "You really believe that bastard can save the world? Seriously? You really are naïve. He's just a freak. The Families want him just to kill him, and I figure the sooner he's out of our lives then the sooner we can get our lives back!" He shouted the last word, and Stefano's knees nearly crumpled under the impact. He knew that feeling. He'd felt that feeling a thousand times himself, but he thought his own family was stronger than that and the thought of that strength kept him going. Leo had left because Jason got killed, but Carlos hadn't suffered anything that extreme. He had made a few trips to Cardiff with Stefano and his brothers, but he hadn't been subjected to the same amount of training that Stefano had done. He had a fairly normal life, even with a wife and a kid. He hadn't had to give up much more than some time, and still he had caved in to the demands of the Family.
"Where are they taking him, Carlos? Tell me!" Stefano knew he sounded desperate, but he couldn't help it. "You've done your job, you've given him over, now tell me where he is so I can get him out of there! You bastard, tell me!" Carlos leaned in even closer, though, and his eyes grew cold.
"They threatened my family, Stefano. You think I'll give you that when they threatened my family? You're insane. I've always known that about you, though." Carlos cast a look over at Esther, who had stood by with a haunted look in her eyes through the whole exchange. "You put your trust in a guy who's insane, you know that?" Carlos looked back to Stefano. "Cold, heartless. Ever since Jason died, you haven't been right. You'd kill your own family to save the Captain, did you tell them about that? Did you? I'll tell her."
Stefano closed his eyes against the memories as Carlos turned back to Esther. "Killed our own cousin, Stefano did. An only child he was, and a bastard, that's true. But Stefano? He didn't just teach him a lesson after the moron tried to turn Harkness over in Cardiff. He killed him! Didn't even bat an eye. There was just the three of us guarding the Captain that night, and Andrew threw me down a hill to get me out of the way and then started shouting for their agents to come and get Harkness. Andrew thought Stefano was out cold, so didn't worry about him. But he wasn't. Drew his gun and shot Andrew right through the heart. Killed at least one of the Family agents, too. Lugged our dead cousin back to our headquarters and called our uncle, telling him there'd been an accident. Killed his own family to protect Harkness. That's just wrong." Carlos looked back to Stefano, "You haven't been family to me since, you devil. Now it's over and you can rot, as far as I care."
He backed off, and looked at the two men holding Stefano and Esther. "Kill Colosanto and make sure the broad can't scream for a while." Then he turned on his heel and stalked away, heading out of sight around the corner of the church.
Stefano knew he didn't have time to think, so he didn't. He ignored the pain in his left arm and as he felt the man holding him shift his weight to pull out the knife he was going to use to end Stefano's life, Stefano twisted at an odd angle, throwing himself toward the ground and away, drawing his feet up and kicking the man away from him. This put him on the ground near Esther, and he knocked the feet of her surprised captor from under him, pulling his own knife out of his belt and thrusting it into the man's shoulder. He uttered a surprised yell of pain and let go of Esther, and Stefano thrust again, this time into his leg. He felt hands around his own waist as his own captor rejoined the fight, and he spun again, using his good hand for leverage as he round-kicked the man in the side of his face with a crunch. The man crumpled to the ground, and Stefano put his knee to the man's chest with his knife at the man's throat, breathing heavily. His shoulder was on fire, but he'd done everything with his good hand and his legs so far, so ignored it. His knife he held didn't waver, and he leaned in close and said hoarsely, "Tell me where they took him. Now."
The man grunted in pain and his eyes were wide with fear. "How the hell should I know? They never said! We were just hired to help hit you guys."
Stefano felt the situation start to slip out of his control, and he tried another tack. "Tell me what you heard. Anything about place. Doesn't matter if you don't know what it meant! Anything!" He pressed the knife tip to the man's throat. "Anything."
The man thought for a moment, and shook his head. "They just kept saying nonsense shit. I couldn't follow 'em. 'Get him back to the basement,' and 'just like before,' they kept saying." He shook his head, thinking he'd given nothing, but Stefano grinned and took a deep breath.
He looked at the other man lying bleeding on the ground and knew he wouldn't be talking to anyone anytime soon, and he looked back at the man he had pinned to the ground and dragged him to the nearby bench, sifting through his pockets and taking the cell phone and car keys he found. He held the man down with his knee and kept the knife trained on his throat. "Esther," he said, not taking his eyes off the man in front of him. She didn't respond. "Esther! Please, come here. I need you to do something for me." She appeared next to him, silent. "Take the car keys from my pocket and go back to our car. Get that bag from the trunk that you asked me about, okay?" She didn't move, and he knew she was afraid of him. He steadied his voice and forced his own hysteria to stop betraying him, "Come on. Get it and we'll go get the Captain. Please, I promise I didn't do this. We'll get him back. I know where he is and I didn't do this, Esther." He heard her take a shaky breath and then she reached down with a trembling hand and pulled the keys from his pocket and disappeared around the church. A few minutes later she returned with the bag. "Open it. There should be a chain and a lock in there." She did as he asked and a minute later the big man was chained to the park bench.
Stefano stood and took a shaky breath. He walked over to the wall of the church, leaned on his good arm, and breathed again, and then slammed his bad shoulder against the wall. He had to do it again, but finally he felt his shoulder snap into place as a pillar of flame shot down his arm. He leaned his forehead against the cool church wall for a moment and took deep breaths and then felt a hand on his back, pressing gently. He turned to see Esther standing there looking up at him with her hand pressed to his back. He took another deep breath and looked down at her. "Come on," he said firmly. "Let's go get the Captain."
They walked silently back to the car, and Stefano took the wheel. Esther was quiet. She felt like her brain was trying to catch up to what her eyes and ears had taken in, and she didn't know what to do. She looked at the dark haired man sitting next to her, Stefano Colosanto, not too far off from her own age but suddenly looking far older as he sat there fumbling to get the keys in the ignition and start them on their way to Jack. She felt like she'd just watched a Shakespeare tragedy in ten minutes, and Stefano was the tragic hero. But she knew he wasn't that kind of hero, really. Not yet. She took a deep breath. Jack. They had to get to Jack, and her fear for him caused her breath to hitch and she clutched her arms to her chest as she felt herself begin to tremble. She looked at Stefano as he pulled the car away from the curb and shakily asked where they were going.
"The butcher shop. They've taken him back to the butcher shop," he replied, and his voice sounded thrilled, like this place was holy, or famous, or apocryphal. She wasn't sure which, but at least he knew where they were going.
"Is it far?"
"No. Just a few minutes," he paused. "Are you all right?"
She wasn't sure how to answer, so she just nodded. She needed that bravery back from when Jack first got shot. That's what she needed now. She couldn't find it. This was different. This wasn't running away. This was running right into the Families' lair and that's what it felt like, a lair. It was probably a lair with a lion, if they were lucky, and if they weren't lucky, it would be a lair with a monster. Running there felt different than running away. She took another deep breath and ignored her own fear. "How are we going to get him out?"
Stefano looked over at her again and she met his eyes, challenging him to answer. He seemed surprised at her question, as if he were expecting her to ask something else, but she knew there wasn't time to ask anything else. Those other questions would just have to wait. So she asked again, "Stefano. How are we going to get him out?"
He looked back at the road and spoke quietly. "I'm not sure yet. I'm hoping they'll be keeping this small, and quiet. It's just an execution, after all, and they must have more flashy things to do elsewhere. If it's small then I can do it myself. Get into the shop and down to the basement to Jack. A few people I can handle." And she knew he could. She had seen enough that day to know that he could handle a few people, but she shuddered when he spoke the word 'execution,' knowing he was right, angry at him for saying it so plainly, so easily. It shouldn't be easy, and she shouldn't be sitting next to someone for whom a few people were easy to 'handle'.
[She and Martin were having coffee on a break one day. She had just finished a fiery rant about the administrators dictating their caseload, and he grinned at her. "Ever want to be a field agent, Esther? Go kick some actual ass rather than just rant about it?" She grinned back at him and laughed, "No. Way. Can you imagine me, in the field? I'm a mouse; I'd get eaten alive!" Martin shook his head and said, very seriously with a glint in his eye, "I think you'd surprise yourself, Esther Drummond. I think you'd surprise yourself."]
They drove in silence for just a few minutes, Stefano weaving the car in and out of the old city streets like a native. What seemed like an eternity later but wasn't much more than ten minutes, they pulled next to an alley way and Stefano stopped the car. He took a deep breath and Esther watched as he methodically checked his gun, pulled a bag from the back seat and got out another gun, checking that and putting both in his jacket pocket. He took his knife out and wiped the blade before slipping it into his jeans pocket. He pulled a thin wire out of the bag as well, tucking it into his back pants pocket, and then he pulled another gun out of the bag and handed it to Esther. She took it, looking him in the eye the whole time.
"Do you know how to use it?"
She nodded, "We got basic firearms training. Not much, but enough."
"Good. Now. I want you to stay at least five feet behind me at all times. Understand? Backup. That's all. Do not fire unless I give you a signal, deal? Do not fire unless I tell you to."
"Deal. Five feet, don't fire unless ordered to do so. I can do that," she said with a reassuring smile and another deep breath. He returned it, and with a grin he climbed out of the car.
They walked from the car to the corner of the alleyway nearby, keeping their guns out of sight. Esther followed Stefano's rule and stayed back from him. He entered the alley slowly, and Esther heard before she saw anything the sound of Stefano's silenced gun firing two shots, and when she emerged into the old, brick alley there were two burly men crashed on the ground outside an old wooden door. Stefano approached the door, put his gun in his pocket long enough to take a small tool smoothly out of his pocketknife and jimmy the lock on the door as quietly as he could. He pulled his gun back out after pocketing his knife, and gestured to her to signal going in.
She nodded, thinking that it was good they had to be silent, because she probably wouldn't have heard anything for her own heart thudding in her ears. Stefano gently pushed the door open, and Esther could see from her vantage point that it was a back stairwell of a shop down to a basement. The basement, she figured. She suppressed another shudder at the thought of what Jack must be feeling being down there, if he was feeling anything at all anymore. Pushing her breath through pinched lips and breathing deeply again, she let Stefano begin his descent and then followed, noting the musty smell of the old stone stairwell with crumbling wooden rails, and feeling the air get colder and colder as they climbed down the steps, the chill in the air clinging to her arms and face the further down they went. She heard Stefano rustle ahead of her, and then she heard a grunt as the man he apparently stabbed crumpled to the ground in front of her. She saw Stefano wave her forward in the dim light when she got to the bottom of the stairs, and then she noticed the figure hanging from a hook ten feet or so in front of them, shadowed, and his head hanging down on his chest, seemingly unaware of their presence. It was Jack.
Jack heard someone coming down the stairs, but he didn't pay attention. He couldn't. He couldn't focus on anything except the fact that he was back in this basement, back hanging by his wrists in a place where he had died over and over and over and over again, and he couldn't focus. His breath was cold and ragged in his chest, and he felt the rope cutting into his wrists because his body ached from the blows they rained on him as they strung him up and the chloroform wore off. He felt like fifty people were hitting him, calling him a devil, screaming for God, but he realized the basement seemed empty enough now and he couldn't quite stand. Tired of this, damn it, he was so tired of this. His side was splitting in pain from where they hit his healing wound, his head ached from the chloroform, and one minute he knew where he was and the next he didn't know when, and then, after they'd left him hanging and stopped hitting him, he swore he smelled machine gun fire, metal, and time lords.
But then he opened his eyes and saw the stone walls of the shop basement, smelled the musty air of dank years of blood from the slaughterhouse seeping into those stones he was roped to, and tasted the blood running down his own face from a small cut that normally would have healed by now above his eye but now wouldn't stop bleeding in the way that normal head wounds don't. Different, the same, different.
He heard something, though, someone new, and they moved softly, and then a voice he didn't ever want to hear again called his name, "Captain. Are you all right?" And he didn't answer, hoping the voice would come closer, the voice that sent him back to this basement and damp, cold, bloody hell. It did come closer, and he saw a knife glinting in the hand that reached toward him and he didn't hear the kind tone in the voice or the words saying he was going to cut him down; he only saw the knife and heard the traitor's voice and so Jack took one deep breath and curled his legs up to his his body, ignoring the chafing cuts of the rope on his wrist as he did so and he kicked out, shoving Stefano the traitor hard against the wall, hearing his head thunk against the stone and his body slide down to the floor, the knife clattering against the hard cement.
Jack dropped his feet and lifted his head, and saw that Stefano was slumped against the wall, rolling onto the pavement and cradling his head in his hands as someone else skittered up next to him, grabbing the knife and turning to Jack. It was Esther. Esther who kept him safe and looked after him and no, please, don't be a traitor, too.
She smiled at him gently and showed her hands clearly and spoke in a soothing tone, "Jack, it's okay. I'm going to cut you down and we're getting you out of here. It's going to be all right." She had a soothing voice and took small steps, so he let her come. He wanted to curl in upon himself and keep himself safe, but there was a chance here and he knew it. There was a chance she was good, kind, and everything she'd been over the last few weeks. So he held still and she reached up slowly to the ropes and cut them. He stood again, but his strength had disappeared and his knees buckled. Esther tried to catch him, but he dragged her down to the floor and she cradled him as best she could, uttering soothing sounds again.
He slumped into her chest and his breaths heaved and he heard her whispering, "Jack, it's all right. Stefano didn't do this. We're getting you out, but we have to go. We have to go now if we want to get out safely. All right?" He had to trust someone, so he nodded weakly. As soon as he nodded he felt strong arms lifting him and throwing his arm over a shoulder.
He turned sharply to face Stefano, who was holding him up, and Stefano looked at Jack with Angelo's eyes and said thickly, "I promise, Captain. I didn't do this. I promise." And Stefano looked and sounded like a son defending himself to his father, needing his father to understand. Jack didn't understand, but he nodded anyway and let himself be led up the stone stairwell and into the dank alleyway behind the shop.
Stefano moved them quickly to the car and bundled Jack into the back seat. Esther climbed in beside Jack and threw her arms around him, pulling him against her in a desperate grip. He realized he was shaking, and he still felt the cold of the basement wrapping him heartlessly and it all still came down to his body, his blood, and his unnatural curse. He let Esther run her hands up and down his back and try to infuse him with her warmth, and he thought to himself that he'd better come to terms pretty damned soon that his curse is what things always came down to with him, but he didn't want to do that. So he rested his head against Esther, and trusted the two people in the car who were trying to help him; one who reminded him of a former lover, and one who reminded him of a trusted friend.