.
.
.
Eliot simply couldn't follow the fucking mess all around him, people stuttering, talking, going to and fro, the maddening sound of a hairdryer, and someone who was pushing dry clothes into his face. He remembered, vaguely, that he was in the bathroom at one point, and that Nate was there too. He probably changed. He couldn't be sure. The only thing he remembered was the too loud clang of the garbage can where Nate threw the wet clothes, and how that sound sent a bolt of pain through his head.
The next thing he remembered were distorted images of Bonnano and Nate carrying huge things, and it took fifteen minutes before he figured out those were the things from the apartment near Mass Gen – they put all of that in one room and now they were assembling two beds.
He wanted to hear what they were saying after that, sitting at the table, but he was – and he had no idea when and how – in the bed and too far away to hear them.
He heard, however, Sophie who was sitting on his bed, staring directly at his eyes, and talking. Cool. He hoped she wouldn't ask of him to repeat what she said. Her voice had a soothing, gentle tone that didn't help him to stay focused, she was intentionally lulling him. Of course he shook it off and stayed awake, so she gave up and left. Only after that he remembered that he wanted to pass out, and that he should've let her keep talking.
When Sophie disappeared, Florence took over, and he put a little more effort into listening, trying not to be rude and scary – why did everybody keep saying he was scaring her, anyway? He had no clue what she was trying to say, but he smiled nevertheless and nodded, just in case. She frowned and hissed at him, throwing a towel on the bed – damn, she was incredibly cute when she was pissed off - his nodding obviously was the wrong answer to whatever question. She fired off quick staccato words before she turned on her heel and went away, and just then he realized that she had just lectured him. About something. That was cool, too. And cute.
When he thought he would be able to close his eyes, finally, Sophie appeared again, then Parker after her, and he was only able to stare at the thief who was pointing her finger at him. Her speech sounded like someone reading a long grocery list, said in a monotone, slow voice. This wasn't soothing, or a lecture. This was an accusation of some sort. He caught a few numbers, minutes and days in it, but that was all.
And for the shit to be complete, Betsy materialized out of nowhere after all of them, with her creepy smile and poked at every single new bruise he had. She even found ones he didn't notice before, pressing at every fucking bone in his body, mercilessly, spiced with sarcastic explanations – oh yes, he simply adored her medical explanations, whether he understood them or not. Whining wouldn't stop her, and he seriously contemplated squeaking – that would surely shock her, and maybe she would. fucking. stop. poking. him.
Why the hell were all the women in his life so damn irritating?
A gasp, a hiss, a giggle and a smirk – all at the same time. Only then did he become aware that he'd said that out loud.
"Maybe the common denominator is the one who should be asked." Betsy stabbed him with a needle, and he looked at his arm. Fuck, not again. He had a canula in his vein, and he traced it to a pole and hanging bag… but even before he could form a question, he knew it wasn't morphine.
"Elephant tranquilizer? Again?" Two milliliters, set on a slow flow, half an hour drip rate, added a memory in his head. How he could calculate the exact amount of drug, but couldn't understand a word they were saying? His brain was a scary place.
"I couldn't agree more." Betsy's smile was devilish now, and he closed his mouth, and forbid himself to think about anything.
That happened to be not so hard a task to perform, because Betsy's smile dissolved into nothing and darkness.
.
.
.
.
Betsy was furious when she found out, after a few questions, that none of them ate anything for an entire day, and though Hardison tried to explain everything that led to that, it was of no use. Florence took over and ordered a pizza.
The mess was more or less over, everybody was dry and taken care of – Parker's leg needed stitches and thorough cleansing, and Betsy spent more than half an hour with her in the bathroom, and then shooed her into the bed with pizza that arrived in the meantime.
Nate decided they would all stay in the apartment, and Florence almost asked him if Betsy and Bonnano would stay too – this gang was clearly well connected. She guessed that Bonnano and Betsy knew each other just by watching their body language and one quick exchange.
Betsy left orders – Florence had the first shift and her task was to wake Hardison every hour and ask him a few simple questions. His concussion wasn't serious, but the headache was growing stronger and his double vision wasn't improving. Eliot should be left alone until he woke up. The nurse gave him a strong muscle relaxant and painkillers, stated that he had nothing broken or fractured, and ordered her to feed him first thing when he woke up.
Fuck, no, that was ridiculous.
"Sophie is a better choice, I'll tell her to-"
"No, you'll do it. He would chase her away, but he'll be polite with you."
"He growls at me," she stated cautiously.
"He growls at everybody." Betsy smiled. "Just ignore that. Or growl back."
Betsy left after that, and Bonnano went with her, so Florence had enough time to think about everything. After they ate, she kept Nate company at the dining table while Sophie was going from bed to bed, unable to sit and rest. The grifter was trying to restrain her urge to coo over all of them but with little success, and Florence couldn't understand how the woman could be so cold and steady when in trouble, and so unstrung afterward, when everything seemed to be fine.
That part, 'seemed to be fine', somehow wasn't convincing, she thought when she realized that Nate, after a short talk with Bonnano, hadn't said a single word.
.
.
.
.
Sophie left late in the evening, after she realized that she would only hinder their rest if she stayed too long. It was possible that Betsy gave something to Hardison and Parker too, because Hardison was out, and Parker kept herself awake only with cartoons, and she was losing that battle rapidly. Florence noticed that the grifter's eyes were more on Nate than the rest of the team for the last hour of her stay.
Florence took her laptop to the dining table, near Hardison's, smiling when she remembered all the trouble he went through to squint at the screen. With everything around him double and moving, he had to ask her to help him set up the cameras and surveillance program again, and he guided her through all the steps. The principle was the same as it was on her peephole camera, though she got only a glimpse of its complexity.
She had just started to go through the emails that had been waiting for an entire day, when her phone rang. She quickly grabbed it and checked the caller ID.
"It's Brewer!" she whispered to Nate.
"Put him on speakerphone, but lower the sound."
"Yes, Mr. Brewer," she whispered, than continued a little stronger, putting the phone on the table between her and Nate. "Florence here."
"I'm sorry to call you so late in the evening, but I told you I would call you today." His voice was hesitant, and she knew, exactly, what he would say.
She lowered her hands from the table and clutched herself. "You don't sound like the bearer of good news, Mr. Brewer," she stated lightly.
"No, I'm afraid I'm not," he sighed and paused. "You see… we had some suspicions about Michael Winslow's business contracts, we checked everything because of his recent accusations, and the Board of Directors discussed this matter for an entire evening… problem is, and you know I have to work in the interests of the company, those shows Michael prepared to replace M7 are very successful."
She ignored the sting of anger burning deep in her side, and smiled. "Of course they are successful, low life humans are enjoying that crap… but you told us, many, many times, that your house provides drama and intelligent shows for intelligent people. You're telling me you're going into cheap programming for uneducated housewives with nine children and bleached hair!?" As her voice grew stronger, Nate's hand rested on her forearm, warning her.
"Well, global crisis is not just knocking on our door, Florence, it's already in the house, digging in the cellar. We had to cut our budget for this year, and with about one million dollars for one of your episodes, we are seven million short."
"Unless you cut that crap, and the money you wanted to invest in them, put it into my show, which would give you better ratings than any other show you have, and you know that. You know what Winslow did and how he did everything to lower my ratings – and you also know we would be close to 5 million viewers if the show was treated properly." When Nate quickly tapped her hand, she realized she wasn't supposed to know what exactly Winslow did, but Brewer didn't notice anything.
"What ifs are useless now, Florence." Brewer sounded tired, but firm. "I was willing to give it another chance, to see how it would go, but I'm not only one here… I was outnumbered."
"But your word is final."
"It is… I could put a veto on their voting, but that is not a good move in a business relationship. I'm afraid my decision is final. It won't be official yet, I'll declare the cancellation on the People's Voice Awards, I have a little speech in the ceremony. I just wanted you to know first. I would appreciate if you wouldn't tell anyone yet, until it's official."
She took one long, long breath, trying to exhale all the anger storming in her chest. "I understand." When she spoke, her voice was controlled and steady. "Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate that."
She ended the call and just stared at the phone, feeling Nate's eyes on her.
"So…"she started after almost a minute of an empty mind, of all her thoughts frozen. "The two main problems of this shit I brought to your doorstep, literally, the mobsters who are trying to kill me, and the cancellation of my show, both things that we believed were solved today, came back and just bit our heads off."
Nate said nothing so she raised her head to look at him. "We thought that putting Winslow behind bars would end mobster's threats to my life," she said slowly. "And immediately after that, the same mobsters took two of you and tried to kill them. We also thought that putting suspicion in Brewer's head would result in him making the right decision. And he canceled my show, definitely, the same day. Everything we did failed. Why don't you look upset?"
He poured whiskey from the bottle into two glasses, and pushed one to her, then smiled. "That's called Plan A," he said calmly.
"And…?"
"And the Plan A usually falls apart. I look at it as a preparation of the ground and feeling a pulse of the opponent."
"So, you're telling me that this is not over, there's still something you can do?"
"We'll see everything tomorrow."
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Nate, we can't stop these mobsters." She didn't want to sound so desperate, but she couldn't hide the tremble in her voice. "If Winslow's arrest didn't stop them, what would? And when Brewer says his final word, that's it, no more negotiating. It's over, do you understand that? I'll go somewhere else, and ask for police protection, or go to New Zealand and join Jethro, but you're here – you're in the same danger because of me, the three of them were almost killed, you're all too deeply involved in this now and I simply don't know how to-"
"Shhhh," he smiled again, cutting off her speeding words. "Do you trust me, Florence?"
Oh. Nasty question. She searched his face, those calm serious features. "I don't know if I trust you, or if I simply want to trust you," she murmured. "But hell, yes, I do. You told me to leave the van when we were going to get them."
"And you stayed," he nodded, swirling the glass in his fingers. He stayed silent, studying her face for a moment. "You're not quite aware of what we are capable of," he said cautiously, with a slight hesitation. "And we are now… motivated."
She said nothing, remembering something dark in his eyes that she had noticed in the van, suddenly feeling uneasy. And something also told her that this man might be the only one that she should be scared of. She twisted her mouth into a smile, knowing very well that he could read her every single thought; damn mind-reading mutants, every one of them. He was reading her, because he smiled and hoisted himself up, taking the bottle.
"Try not to worry too much, until we decide what to do next. Okay?"
"You'll be able to sleep?"
"Three B's – a book, a bottle and a bed," he smiled, sweeping the room with his eyes. Something strange flickered in them while he looked at the three sleeping people, but in the dim light she couldn't decipher what emotion went over his face. He stirred and looked at her again. "You'll manage? Wake me up to take over when you've had enough."
"I'll be busy, don't worry. Emails, blog, updates, working with my notes… I have plenty of work to do, and I have to catch up with everything."
He just nodded and left, leaving her alone in the silence.
.
.
.
.
She hated this feeling of utter misery. It was difficult to write an email to Jethro, and with cheerful words describe to him how her meetings went, how boring the two last days had been, and how nothing important happened.
She checked the time and went to see Hardison, nudging him slightly.
"Still headache, still double," he murmured turning on the other side. "But the bed stopped rolling. That's an improvement."
He fell back asleep before she could answer, so she just smiled and let him alone.
How, for god's sake, could Nate think they would continue with their job, she asked herself while looking the three beds – the apartment looked like a battlefield hospital. Three of five was out of commission, for who knows how long. Nate and Sophie couldn't fight Knudsen and all of Dvorak Security, not to the mention numerous mobsters that Don Lazzara would send if he saw his nephew threatened. Yes, she was with them as a third, but she was useless, all her knowledge about violent and action stuff was fucking theoretical – and she knew they were many steps ahead of her even on that field.
She mourned her show – but the other threat was far more dangerous. If M7 wasn't renewed, it would be shame, but that was all – yet, if they didn't resolve that mobster threat, their lives would be in danger. She could simply go to New Zealand to Jethro – she intended to do so during the hiatus between seasons, right after the PVA – but they would stay here, in the apartment that was already marked as a target, never safe. Because they protected her.
She put away all correspondence. Nate's whiskey warmed her, and she relaxed, letting her thoughts flow around the subject of mobsters, as if they were a stubborn plot twist that didn't bend to her will. Thinking about writing led to shooting, shooting led to recording, and recording led to… Hardison's laptop.
She straightened herself up and opened her eyes, alert.
Surveillance cameras must have caught the mobsters in the hall, going into the apartment, and taking two prisoners out of it – if they weren't masked, their faces should be visible. Sooner or later Nate would have to admit they were helpless, and when it finally came time to talk to the police, recorded evidence could be crucial. They could use that recording and prove that Dvorak Security attacked decent citizens in their building. Cora's call to Bonnano would confirm that. She quickly put a headset on and went through all the steps she remembered, improvising when it came to finding the recorded data, and playing it, but it only took a few minutes before she learned how to start it.
Remembering the time when Parker called Nate, she went back a little, and jumped into the feed right at the moment when Eliot went into the corridor.
Fuck, she shouldn't… this looked like a confidant conversation – she stayed motionless with fingers frozen above the keyboard, unable to decide what to do, glancing to the beds spread all over the room to check if they were still sleeping. She didn't know how to move the feed in small amounts of time, and if she skipped this, she would miss the mobsters. This was a clear intrusion of privacy...
But she couldn't stop, she stared at the feed, listening to every word without breathing.
Jesus.
When the mobsters finally came, she was so stunned that she almost missed their faces. All four of them were visible and clear, she even knew two of them, she saw them on shooting locations a couple of times.
Estrella. She vaguely remembered that name from the news last week, and she quietly turned the feed off, put the regular real time recording back on the screen, and went to her laptop to attack Google.
All the articles she found agreed on one thing: this was a massacre unheard of in Boston. Nine dead, seventeen wounded, an ecological threat still present. Something happened with the chlorine tanks at the pools, the chemicals were still too high. Five men were suffering from gunshot wounds and severe chlorine poisoning. And they were in the middle of that place while that was happening. After checking the exact time, she figured out that it had happened only one hour before they brought Eliot into the apartment, caught on her peephole camera.
She couldn't sit peacefully, so she started to pace the room, barefoot and silent, connections clicking unstoppably into place. Everything that Nate said and Sophie explained formed into a pretty clear route through That Night. Eliot sent the Mexicans after the Chileans and that culminated into the massacre at Estrella; he sent the Italians after the Chileans, and that made the Boston night full of machine gun fights and fires. The rest of the team was chasing him through the entire town, the whole night, and they finally caught up with him in Estrella, not before.
She tiptoed to his bed, and peeked behind the shelf, watching the man who had started all that – for now she knew, without any doubt, that every single fight that night was his doing. No wonder he had nightmares.
Was this any rest at all? He looked as if he was sleeping normally, relaxed, but he was drugged. His hair was dry by now, and it was curly, she noticed it; the dimmed lights didn't allow her to see anything else. And she shouldn't be watching him at all, she reminded herself sternly.
She had only been staring at him for five seconds when he stirred in his sleep, and she retreated to the dining table in small quick steps, feeling ridiculous, cursing breathlessly. She was sure he felt someone watching him, even on the painkillers and other shit that Betsy gave him.
Checking the time showed her it was only midnight, so she sighed, went once more to wake up Hardison, and returned to her emails, trying to dig herself as deep as she could, to stop thinking about, well, everything.
She had almost succeeded when she sensed a presence and then Eliot slowly lowered himself into the chair.
"Time?" he said shortly.
"Midnight." She observed him, realizing he had no idea what woke him up, if this state could be called being awake… he was trying to focus and gather himself, without any visible result.
The funny thing was, sitting in the middle of the night with a drugged and disoriented angel of destruction brought no fear. She had been much more relaxed with them, yet she didn't lose all caution, so she slowly, very slowly got up. She went into the kitchen and brought one slice pizza, putting it on the table in front of him.
"Betsy said you have to eat," she explained and almost smiled when he rubbed his eyes with a clumsy, half-asleep move. It was… incredibly cute. Except for the part where he winced when he touched the bruise beneath his eye, a new one. She knew enough not to be fooled by that clumsiness – she remembered his jumping out of van, in only one second going from half conscious to deadly alert.
For some time he just stared at the pizza, and she let him have that silence, not watching him, typing her emails.
"Are you sure you should be awake?"she asked when he turned to look over the room.
"No. But I can't sleep now. Maybe later. Maybe…" he stopped, watching his fingers, seemingly fascinated by their slow moves. "What was that towel stuff, before?" he suddenly asked and she needed a few seconds before she remembered.
"Nah, nothing important. Sophie sent me to bring you… you had no idea what was I saying, right?" She waited until he nodded, then continued. "And what was that yelling and snarling at me down on the street about?"
Now was his turn to try to remember – she knew it wasn't fair to use his unfocused state, but their talk in the van showed her how rare and precious the moments without all of his shields were. This one seemed to be another chance to see him, the real Eliot, not that strange guardian role he played.
"It was stupid, reckless, dangerous, completely useless and-" he struggled for more words but he gave up. "Mostly stupid. You're a client. Clients don't jump on mobsters while the team is two meters away. If that wasn't Patrick, you would be dead in two seconds. Did I mention reckless? And dangerous?"
"And completely useless. Yes, you did." She studied him, noticing the flicker of anger that memory brought: it would be better to change the subject. "This is by far the weirdest apology I've ever heard."
"I wasn't apol-"
"You did. You explained. That's all I need. I need to understand what's going on, then I can accept everything." She waited, but the hint was clearly too light to catch, he didn't react. After a few moments he carefully touched the band aid above his eyebrow, and winced again.
She waited more. "I'm a sucker for information," she continued lightly, taking the last sip of whiskey. "That's research stuff – with enough data, you can do anything, understand anything. Being kept in the dark is the worst thing for me."
He poked the cold pizza with one finger, looking at it with a tilted head.
She could bet his eyes couldn't be duller than this, and she stopped an irritated sigh; he was playing her.
"You took that whiskey, or did Nate pour it for you?" he suddenly asked.
"Nate. Why?"
His eyes were sharp again in less than a second. "What happened while we slept?"
"Brewer canceled M7. It's official now, yet not announced. What does Nate's whiskey-" she fell silent, watching him destroying all the combined effects of the relaxants and painkillers, clearing his mind almost visibly.
"Nate said that was just Plan A," she said wearily, expecting who knew what amount of rage again, but he smiled.
"That's the worrying part," he said softly, then stood up with slow, stiff moves. He looked beaten to the bone, unable to straighten up.
What the hell happened in that slaughterhouse? How did they escape from ten armed killers? The few short sentences that Hardison provided clearly were enough for Nate, he didn't ask more, but she didn't get it. Asking Eliot now didn't sound like a good idea, so she just waited while he inspected the room again. She would press Hardison tomorrow.
"We are way behind on watching your episodes." It wasn't what she expected as a result of his thinking. "Do you have something important to do now? Can you watch it with me?
"Only waking up Hardison. But you shouldn't – you should-"
"We are still on the Season Two. Three episodes now, and the rest in the morning, after sleep, okay?"
"But why?"
He turned to her again, hesitating. "Nate wanted me to do it. His plans are mostly indescribable until executed, and they're all simmering at the same time, in different stages… watching your show is part of one of them."
"And you didn't ask why it's important?"
"No."
She understood. She had one director whom she trusted without any questions, any explanations – she could give him a script and be sure he would shoot it exactly how she wanted it.
"I won't have time for the podcasts, commentaries and all the additions on the discs, so I'll need you to talk about it – you have to tell me everything that comes to your mind. You have to… to…"
"You want me to babble?" she offered helpfully.
A quickly suppressed grin crinkled his eyes. "Exactly. But quietly, we don't want to wake 'em up."
He pulled up the episode they stopped watching in the middle and Florence brought the pizza and Hardison's strange juice, trying not to think that the sofa in front of the screens was actually her bed now, with blankets and pillows. Orion, as standard equipment, volunteered to help them with the pizza, and the first fifteen minutes was less watching and commenting, and more of a united effort to keep his little paws away from crust.
She didn't know what Nate wanted with this, and how he knew two days ago that it would be necessary, but she surely knew she wouldn't get any explanation even if she asked him. Instead of worrying further, she just relaxed, whispering about all the funny things, problems and tricks of TV show business. She avoided looking at Eliot, still not sure if she would reveal somehow that she knew about his nightmares and all that talk with Hardison. Those people were dangerously precise at reading everything she tried to hide, but she made peace with herself. She did know something she shouldn't have known… but at the same time, they knew her much more than she liked.
Reciprocity. She could live with that.
She put aside all the fears that tomorrow would wake up again and erased nine dead and seventeen wounded in Estrella from her mind. She also tried to ignore that she was sitting next to a man who's presence was disturbing her to the point of being aware of his every move, every breath. She kept her eyes on the screen.
Some tasks were harder than others.
.
.