Chapter 52
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Make dinner, or rest and preserve strength? Eliot was pondering the pros and cons, but Hardison had directed a catering agency to their doorstep, after they delivered the food for the gathering police, and not only was dinner covered, but they also didn't have to think about food for tomorrow. It was a shame, because cooking helped him think, always, and he needed to go through all his steps on Facebook and see what else he could do to the Supernatural fandom.
For now, everything was going fine. In a less than an hour, things started, fires were ignited, and his presence with comments was optional. It was enough to say something from time to time, from different accounts, to stir the mess if he saw that it was calming down. And that was it.
Evening was slowly crawling nearer, and he was tired. Two hours of sleep helped him survive, but it didn't rest him, and he knew he had to do something to keep himself alert and awake. Reading comments was too passive, just like watching the episodes would be. They had enough time for that later.
He got up, carefully. His painkillers were military grade, not those that Betsy left for him. Fancy civilian pills were useless in real trouble – military doses were in powder form, stronger and faster. And it was time for another dose. He went into the bathroom, using a quick shave as an excuse, but when he returned nobody seemed to notice anything. Sophie, who had finished the sponsor list, leaving Florence speechless – a trick he should learn too – was quietly talking with Nate at the dining table. The others were still piled on the sofa, some resting, some working. Hardison didn't stop typing, except when he went to get a bottle of his juice.
There was one important thing he could do, and he should do it before fever started to rise again. Nate and Sophie bought a new pot for George. White, but with the same Leverage logo on it as the old one had. Now he knew why it took them so long to arrive at the apartment. There was a message in it, he knew it. The bag of soil was ready, and he only needed newspapers. And George.
He spread newspapers on the floor near the stairs and bags, under the barricaded windows, far away from everybody curious. He could sit relatively comfortably, on two small stairs, but even those simple preparations left him drained and half breathless. The painkillers were deceptive and dangerous just like the morphine had been; they dulled the pain, making him feel better than he really was. Especially now, when every careless move could further mess up the already opened wound. The pain was a useful signal that he overdid something, and not an enemy.
"Time for a change," he said to George, pulling him out of the pot. The old one had two bullet holes in it and one small piece was missing. That was the reason for this, and not Sophie's babbling about growing, breathing and all that confusing crap she attacked him with in the slaughterhouse. Besides, he noticed that Orion had dug at his roots through the bigger hole on the side. Sophie would say he was helping George, digging for bullets, taking away the things that hurt him. Bullshit. His claws could only slice into him at the roots; into the heart of the plant. Slicing the leaves wasn't as dangerous, it was like a skin cut, shallow and easy to forget. But roots were deep and vital, leaving them naked and exposed, damaged, with scars that wouldn't heal…
George watched him like Hardison used to do sometimes, with wide open eyes, with a message, waiting for him to get it, unnerved and impatient.
"You know, I think I spoiled you," he said quietly. "You allow yourself too much. You are not, really, able to communicate – I'm just allowing you to think so. Why, I still don't know… seemed to be a good idea when we started. But now you're becoming too moody and demanding. Relax."
George sighed, resigned.
"If I was lucky, the psychosis would bring me a sexy blon… redhead to talk to, and not a stupid tree," he continued, shaking the tree slightly, and taking off all the loose soil clumps. He put him aside and cut open the new bag, filling the new pot with fresh soil.
Just then he noticed Orion sneaking from his right side, to attack George who was unprotected now, his roots visible and open. The cat jumped with his paws spread, with diabolic joy in his eyes, but he managed to catch him half way to George.
Well, that's why the painkillers weren't always a good solution - he would have thought twice before making that sudden and too quick move, if he wasn't dulled. This would hurt as hell usually – now it just hurt.
"Hey!" He put him on the floor and frowned at him. "No."
Orion tapped George's roots with his paw.
He picked him up, made an eye contact. "No," he said firmly. He held his eyes for a few more seconds, then put him in the same spot.
Orion thought for a second, tilting his head a little, then tapped George again.
Jesus, how the hell he was supposed to put any sense in that cat?
George quietly cleared his throat. "Yeah, I know he is playing me, thank you," he grumbled. And what now? If he picked him up again, he would feel stupid, knowing that the cat provoked him to do it because it was funny to him... and if he didn't, the cat won again, because he gave up on disciplining him.
"Okay, you can stay, just move away. And behave."
And as if Orion understood what he had told him, he jumped on the clumps of soil lying on newspapers, just like a small kitten would do. The damn monster was making him want to smile, in spite of George's rolling of his eyes.
He continued with the soil business, while Orion murmured happily around him, playing and trying to tear the newspapers apart. Distracting him with dirt clumps went well, but it was too close to actual playing with the cat for his liking, so he decided to concentrate on George.
He put him on the soil in the new pot, and now it was a sensitive phase – tucking him in the new one, carefully. Another bullet fell out from his roots, one he had missed before. Orion accepted the shiny metal thingy with joy, and chased the bullet all around him on the wooden floor, until he managed to push him into the half empty soil bag. Sophie would probably say that he would have missed this bullet, too, if Orion didn't paw George twice, he just knew it. Continuing with a thorough explanation how the bullet would continue to poison him from deep inside, just like the morphine did, until he got rid of it, and how Orion cleaned that, giving him…. Jesus, he was pissing himself off thinking like that, he had to stop – every damn thought was ambiguous, and she planted that shit in his brain intentionally.
With something that sounded almost like a squeak of joy, Orion jumped into the bag of soil that he left lying to the side, in search of the bullet. Shit.
"Get out." He bent to look into the dark opening, pulling up one side to look at the cat. One dirty paw flashed out, missing his fingers by the thread. Murmuring came from inside, and the bag jumped up. Orion was twirling in black soil, for crying out loud, he would never hear the end of that.
"Get. Out," he whispered again. No results, except more twirling. He tore off a strip of newspaper and used it as bait, and first one paw tried to catch it, then finally Orion showed his head.
Well, white was so last season. It took five tries to make him come out, covered with soil, greyish with black smudges, but when he finally grabbed him, the cat had no objections to it. Orion happily held the strip in his paws, purring like a train, while he tried to brush the soil off of him.
"There you go," he said gently, putting him back on the floor.
"Did I just hear an unmanly sound?" Hardison's voice sounded suspiciously close and he quickly turned around. The hacker was standing by the sofa with a phone in his hand, recording him. And the other four heads were all turned in his direction, too.
"What the hell you think ya doin'?" he growled. Orion jumped away at that sound, and dived head first in one of the duffel bags piled under the window. For a moment he felt relief – finally, someone he could still scare – but then he felt awful for scaring him in the first place. Which pissed him off even more.
"Blackmail material," Hardison said gleefully. "Eliot Spencer, playing with the cat. And cooing to the cat. Simply adorable."
"You better, you-" he bit back the words; there wasn't any threat good enough for this. "Mind your own business. Now."
"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya," Hardison put down his phone. "Scary. Now stop plotting my untimely demise, will you, there are witnesses around."
"And yet, despite the look on my face, you're still talking?"
If Hardison's grin went wider, his head would split – but he turned around and sat back in his chair. The four other heads, as if on command, turned away, too, in all directions.
Damn nosy bunch. He made a mental note to get the marker pen – this pot needed to have Associates scratched out, and IDIOTS written on it, too.
He tucked George into the soil, and observed him for a while… again, he couldn't say what he was thinking now, except that he wasn't amused by this invasion of privacy. As if we have any privacy left.
Cleaning up and gathering the newspapers took a minute. He was tired as hell, and he needed to return to the bed and lay down with his eyes closed, to recover from this. Not to mention that George in the bigger pot was heavier than usual, and he gritted his teeth while carrying him back to the bed, to put him under the light. Military or not, no drugs could diminish the pain of directly pulling every torn muscle.
He rested, leaning on the wall beneath Old Nate, just breathing, before he went back to put away the rest of the things he'd used.
Then he heard a clanking from the duffel bag where Orion was hiding. A bunch of bags were piled there, and he knew that Florence's stuff was mixed in with the things from the second apartment near Mass Gen; rummaging through her clothes was the last thing on his mind. Yet, that clanking didn't sound like fabric, so he risked the bitching and opened the moving bag completely.
A very happy cat was having the time of his life with a metal circle – he read somewhere that cats liked to play with various rings – but the problem, which froze his blood in an instant, was that the ring was a safety pin, just barely attached to a hand grenade. Orion was trying very hard to pull it out, using both claws and teeth.
He slowly reached in the bag and took the grenade away from him, holding the pin pressed in, then even more slowly reached with the other hand and picked up the cat. He put him on the floor and kicked the bullet with his foot, sending the cat on a wild chase, away from the bags.
He checked the grenade. Put it in the bag. Slowly. Closed the bag. Remembered to breathe.
"Parker." The breathlessness was clearly audible in his voice when he whispered. "Why do we have a bag with hand grenades, in the apartment?"
"Francisco's stuff," she said, not disturbed at all. "I didn't use all of them in Estrella. Couldn't leave them in Lucille, right?"
"Parker," he said again, still not turning around, still staring at the bag. "How many bullets were flying in here when the sniper attacked us?"
"What? Why… oh." She went silent for a second. "Well, none hit a grenade, so it's irrelevant."
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. Ricochets had made cheese of that wall, the bags were hit by bullets, and if just one bullet hit this one… he took one long, calming breath, turning around to face them.
Silent, and pretty much pale, all of them.
"Keep it closed. Orion almost activated one now," he whispered and dragged himself to the bed. "And be quiet a little, okay?" he said when he closed his eyes.
They did as he said.
Yet, four paws walked all over him, to the pillow. Orion bonked his head at his face – hitting, with perfect aim, the exact spot where Hardison's fist left a bruise – and curled on his arm, cheerfully purring and licking his face.
George hissed a warning.
Jesus, maybe going to Mass Gen wasn't such a bad idea after all. As in now.
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Florence grabbed a small broom to pick up the bits of soil that Eliot missed. After that, casually, she went to wash the dishes. She made popcorn. Then she arranged the marzipan balls in one bowl, sorting them by color. She had nothing to do, except endlessly replying to various comments and messages, and everybody took her moving around as something normal, occupied with different things.
She moved to the other end of the room again, sorting her clothes. Nate had offered her use some of his upstairs closets, but she forgot about that, until now.
That just added to her already miserable mood. The reminder that there was no point in putting her clothes in the closet one day before she left this place painfully stirred the feelings that pierced her heart while she watched Eliot playing with Orion.
She was the first to notice that interplay, having always been aware of Orion's whereabouts, and she had enough time to study them all – a man, a plant and a cat. There was definitely warmth in that low, raspy voice of his. Orion wouldn't go near him, ever, if he didn't feel it too, if he didn't feel safe with him.
It took only a minute for her to realize that she wanted to join them. To join him. And that she enjoyed being near him whatever he was doing, whichever mood he was in.
Somehow, that realization hit her harder than her first one, when she felt she wanted him. Misplaced desires weren't that unusual, and she knew that it was benign – she had no intentions of taking him into her bed, even if there was a chance, though she wanted to. Lust could be controlled… no, better to say, lust could be kept on a leash, never letting it become something more.
But, this… this was the real betrayal of her marriage and the man she loved – wanting the company of another man, wanting to be near him, to look at him, to listen to him, to want to know him better.
That was what she wanted, and that scared the shit out of her – she wanted the whole package of this gruff mystery. And she couldn't have it. Something flickered in her heart, something painfully close to sorrow. She would never have a chance to know him completely, to discover all the hidden layers... and she had no idea how losing something you'd never had could hurt so much.
She picked up an armful of clothes and went upstairs, but she turned left in the hall, entering the bathroom, not Nate's bedroom. There wasn't a better place for loathing over herself, especially when sitting on the floor.
Just one day, she reminded herself, for who knew what time since this had started, but now it sounded like a curse, not like the promise of freedom.
She missed Jethro, badly. But she also missed that damn idiot downstairs, and she saw him only a few minutes ago. And it was crazy, and impossible, and dangerous, and she couldn't understand how that could happen.
Just one more day.
A soft knock on the door made her smile. She should've known that escape was futile. She also knew who was the only one able to see through innocently taking clothes to the closet.
"Yes, Sophie?" she asked, suddenly aware that she wanted her to come after her. "If you're going to ask me what I am doing, well, I'm in the bathroom, as you can see. Do you want to come in?"
Sophie entered without reply.
"What tells did I have this time?" Florence asked.
"I don't need tells," the grifter smiled. She kept her distance, staying close to the sink and mirror, glancing at it and arranging her hair. Florence watched her for a few seconds, half worried because she was able to notice and understand a subtle easing of the pressure. Free from her piercing eyes, she had time to think and decide what to say.
"Is it possible to love two men at the same time?" she heard herself asking, almost surprised. But she had nothing to lose – she knew it was impossible to hide anything from her.
Sophie glanced at her over her shoulder. "For you? I don't know," she said softly. "For me, it was the most constant thing in my life. I loved two men for many years. One of them was always changing – I loved all my boyfriends, some of them for months, some of them for years. But I loved one man, the second of the pair, at the same time. He was married, with a brilliant career, a beautiful, smart wife, and a little son. I couldn't have him. And that changed nothing."
"You didn't feel guilty?"
"Nobody should feel guilty because of love, darling. People try to tame love, to define it, to restrict it with regulations, culture, customs – but in the end, it's just something beautiful. Loving someone is… a gift to that person. You can't command it. And you surely don't diminish it by sharing it, on the contrary. The more you love, the more you…can love."
"It's not that simple," she whispered.
"It never is." The dark eyes were watching her now, but it wasn't unpleasant. "Especially if you're in a position where you have to choose. I could live with loving and wanting a man whom I couldn't have. I wasn't forced to choose just one. Some people can't live like that."
She stared at her. "I wasn't thinking about… I'm not – I don't, really, have a choice. I mean, he isn't – he doesn't –"
"Where is your home, Florence?" The question cut off her stuttering.
"With Jethro," she breathed without thinking.
"Then go home, when all this is over. Only there you will know what to feel and what to do. Not here," the grifter waved her hand to the door. "Not with him so close. He is a dangerous, enthralling man."
"Yes, I noticed that," she scrambled to her feet. "If I'm lucky, this will disappear when I'm gone."
"Then it wasn't love at all, so there's nothing to worry about anyway. Just infatuation with a sexy man, nothing more than that," Sophie said casually. "Love is need. Love is wanting much more than sex."
That made her flinch inside, and for a moment she didn't know what to say; to tell her everything, or to keep it on this level. No, nobody deserved to be burdened with her miserable little drama, not now when they had serious shit in front of them. But at the same time it felt pointless to hide how deep she was in this. Sophie knew.
"I really didn't need this," she murmured unhappily. "Not now."
"Neither did he," Sophie said. "Not now."
What was that supposed to mean? She knew already that he was attracted to her as well, but she considered that only a guy thing; it would probably be like that with any other woman in her place. Would it be? Sophie must've seen everything from the very beginning, even before she, or he were aware of it themselves, and watching her now, Florence realized that she had no idea what Sophie was, actually, thinking about it. It was futile even to try to read the grifter, her features set in a neutral expression, with a hint of a light smile.
And that light smile faded while she watched her thinking. "You know nothing about him," Sophie said.
Was that a warning for her, or for his sake? She could feel Sophie liked her, a lot, but she also knew that if there ever came a situation that called for choosing between her, and Eliot, Sophie wouldn't think for even a second. She picked up her clothes, using it to cover up all the thoughts that reeled through her too-readable mind.
"I don't need his history to know him," she said carefully, studying a green blouse on top of the armful of crumpled mess. "I've seen glimpses of it in his eyes, and I'm not a fool, I can feel what's lurking deep inside." Now she raised her eyes to meet Sophie's. "But you, Sophie Devereaux, would die for him, if needed," she whispered. "All of you would. Because of what he is. Because he is worth it. I've seen enough of it to know it's worth finding out more, knowing more, wanting more – and yes, it is some sort of love."
The dark eyes softened a bit. Oh yes, there wasn't any doubt where her loyalty lay – but she obviously said something that eased the grifter's worries. Am I good enough for your hitter, Mrs. Devereaux?
"I have one day," she continued, aware that her sadness and bitterness was showing. "I have nothing. And maybe I'll have only a memory of, of… that nothing, when this ends. And that's okay. I won't do anything that would…hurt him. If that's what worries you."
"It's a little bit too late for that." There wasn't an accusation in her words, just a simple fact – and it was also a gift for her, Florence realized. The grifter knew very well what she had just told her right now. Her heart fluttered with a stupid happiness, and she hated herself because of it.
Sophie turned her back to her, facing the mirror; an unusual, sudden move. Florence had never seen her losing her grace and calmness before, and that turn was as close to it as she knew she would ever see.
She waited.
After a few moments Sophie looked at her over her shoulder, her eyebrows furrowed and eyes full of…doubt? Worry? No, there was something even darker in them.
She didn't want more disturbing things. "Let's go downstairs," Florence said, putting a smile on her face. She clutched the clothes tighter and made a step to pass by her to the door.
"Florence…" Sophie stopped her with her hand. Her white, long fingers rested on her sleeve for a second. The grifter hesitated, Florence realized with growing worry. "I don't know what awaits us at the PVA ceremony. I don't know how it will end," Sophie said slowly. Her voice fell further, almost to a whisper. "I don't have a good feeling about it." And it wasn't the grifter anymore, there wasn't any pretending, no calculations in her eyes – just a simple woman struggling with words. Scared. "Eliot takes his responsibilities very seriously. When he can't do much, like now, he compensates for that by doing and giving... everything. Tomorrow, that everything can mean exactly that. Everything."
Her mouth went dry. "What are you trying to say?" she whispered.
"Love doesn't torture… regret does." She paused as if not sure what and how much to tell her. "Missed chances, words left unspoken. If there… if there isn't a second chance."
Her words felt like a blow to the gut, cutting off her breath; she didn't need this to remind her how scared she already was. But seeing Sophie scared, too, made her realize that she didn't really know what would happen tomorrow. And how would one man, barely able to stand, keep them all alive. Including himself. Especially himself.
"You, you – you're not conning me or grifting me right now, whatever?" she stuttered.
The dark sadness in Sophie's eyes gave her the answer even before the grifter shook her head.
She had basically told her to go for it, because he might die tomorrow. Jesus, Sophie knew him. What did she see or feel in him, or fear, that forced her to tell her that?
"He told me that winning was only refusing to lose," she whispered. "He won't lose."
Sophie let go of her sleeve, straightened the crumpled fabric with a few gentle pats.
And said nothing.
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