AN: Partially inspired by a story about Carter's store on ffn that I wasn't able to find again, oops.

As of writing this, I've only watched up to "The Bottle Job" (S2E11) of Leverage. I would love to experience the reveals organically as I watch with my friend, so no spoilers in the comments please & thank you!

Grassie, thank you for your help in fact checking and beta reading! 3


Parker looked at the cleaning supplies they had gathered up and tilted her head. "You know, I could make a bomb with this."

"Whoa, don't go making a bomb out of this, we need it to clean up this place," Hardison said, alarmed. "Clean, not demolish."

Eliot looked from the assorted supplies to Parker and smiled in disbelief. "No way. You're missing key ingredients for a stable explosive."

Parker's head flicked to him. "Who said it had to be stable?"

His smile faded quickly. "Only you would consider that."

Parker shrugged, leaning on the table. "In World War Two, spies had to make do with less."

"And I'm sure we're all glad we're not stuck in the dark ages like them, but the sooner we start this—" Hardison circled the cleaning supplies with one hand "—the sooner we can spend our day off not cleaning Nate's apartment because of grabbing our emergency cash for his crazy idea. I mean, we got all the furniture in order. It's just down to the finishing touches." He picked up a wet cloth. "I still can't believe that cereal actually made the counter sticky."

They each took a different cleaning option and moved to a different part of the room, getting started. "Parker, how do you know what explosives World War Two spies worked with anyway?" Eliot asked, his mop slapping against the floor.

She paused in scrubbing the sink. "Oh, I met one."

Both men stopped to share a look, then stare at her. She didn't notice. "You met a World War Two spy?" Hardison asked, baffled. "When was this?"

Parker made a face, considering, but didn't answer.

"I mean—I mean, who?"

"Carter." She worked hard at the crease surrounding the drain. "That was the name of his store, too. Carter Pharmacy."

"Hold up. Carter Pharmacy in Bullfrog, North Dakota?"

She turned to stare at Hardison, wide-eyed.

He smiled. "No, I—Parker, I've been there. You're telling me that that old guy was a spy? I thought he was cool, but I didn't know he was that cool."

Eliot looked from one to the other, baffled. "What are you talking about?"

"Okay, look. I was on this trip with my Nana, and the car broke down there. He fixed it, and even gave me a chocolate bar."

"Uh-huh," Eliot said, unimpressed.

"No, I—I swear man, it was really cool."


It was hot, and the van was broken. The hood was all smoky, and that couldn't be good. He had been crammed in there with the other foster kids for hours on what could have been a nice summer day. It was frustrating to still be stuck right next to it when there was a candy display in the store across the road. Nana's cell phone wasn't picking up a signal, and some of the people in the sleepy town were giving them odd looks.

"Nana, could I get some candy—?"

"No, Alec, you don't need candy right now. Please, just wait patiently," she said, sounding almost upset. "I just need this call to go through—"

"It looks like you have a little car trouble, ma'am. Do you need some help?"

They all turned to see the kindly old man crossing the road from the store with the candy display—the Carter Pharmacy. "Yes, do you have a phone?" she asked. "I've tried to get through to triple A, but I can't seem to reach anyone."

He shook his head. "Oh, that'll take hours. I know a little about engines and such. Would you mind if I took a look?"

He looked fragile, all tall and thin like that. Nana seemed to think so, too. "I couldn't ask you to do that—"

"Then I suppose that it's a good thing that I offered, isn't it?" he said cheerfully. "Now, let me see here…."

After a few minutes of checking over their engine, the man nodded firmly. "Looks like it's just your radiator. We ought to let it cool down first, but that's easy enough to fix. Let me get some water for you from the store," he offered.

"Thank you so much," Nana said, relieved. "The Lord bless you, sir."

He smiled, walking across the road. Alec straightened. "Nana, could I—?"

"No, Alec. Don't bother the man." She sighed heavily. "With five more hours of driving, the last thing you need is candy."

He settled back, disappointed, while the man brought out a big jug of water and chatted with Nana about the van as they waited. Alec folded his arms, impatient. He hadn't wanted to go on this trip to begin with.

The other kids talked among themselves noisily as they waited. The old man kept making Nana laugh. Eventually, the radiator cooled down and the water got added. All the kids got ushered back into the car, but Alec leaned against it, disheartened.

"Hey, why the long face?"

Alec scowled at the man, but he ignored him, smiling brightly as he leaned down next to him. His wrinkles all showed up at once. "I heard you wanted some candy," he whispered.

Alec held his breath, hopeful.

He winked at him, slipping him a chocolate bar. "It's okay to be a bit bad sometimes, just as long as you don't hurt good people doing it. Remember that." He straightened Alec's bow tie, brushing off the shoulder of his suit. "Be sure to share that with the others."

"Yes sir," he said, tucking the chocolate into his jacket to smuggle into the van.

"Don't let it melt," he cautioned him quietly.

"Alec?"

The old man stood up creakily and smiled at her. "You have a wonderful boy there, ma'am, just wonderful. All of your little ones are so well-behaved."

"Oh, thank you," Nana said, flattered, giving Alec the chance to climb in, escaping her notice. The chocolate was distributed with quiet giggles, and the old man waved to them as they left. It gave Alec a warm feeling, just like the chocolate melting in his mouth.


"Hey, if you say so," Eliot said, humoring him.

Parker smiled. "He gave me a chocolate bar too. He was nice."

Hardison waited for her to continue. She didn't, turning back to her scrubbing. "That's it?" he finally asked. "How did you figure out that he was a World War Two spy just from that? You were a kid!"

Parker paused, considering.


"You stupid little—"

"Excuse me, did you need something?"

The man that had interrupted her new dad was tall and thin. He reminded her of a wrinkly scarecrow. When her dad growled bad words at him, she was surprised that he didn't even act like he'd noticed. Other people usually left after her dad did that.

"Well, I don't know that I can help by, er, leaving," he said with a laugh, pointing at the shelves around them. "This is my store. I have to mind it, or Mrs. Newheim won't be able to pick up her medication. She's supposed to come in today, y'know. Not to mention the weather! Coldest February we've had in a while, here. If she comes by to find the store all locked up—"

"I don't care about your stupid deliveries, old man—"

"But what about Mrs. Newheim? She gets really upset if she can't pick up her medication on time, boy I'll tell ya—"

"Do you have a phone or not?" he interrupted. "I need to call for a tow."

"Oh, a phone," he said, smiling. "You know, I remember a time when we didn't have a phone in Bullfrog. We had to rely on letters—or on telegrams. Fascinating things, telegrams. If you—"

Her dad was completely distracted with trying to interrupt the old man, giving her the chance to dart away. She was going to become a better thief, and thieves were sneaky. If she wanted to get better at it, she needed to practice. She would hide, and when she came back they wouldn't even know she'd been gone.

She crept back into the aisles, clearing a space to hide behind a stack of small candy boxes on the bottom shelf.

As she listened, her dad stopped yelling at the old man and started yelling into the phone instead. She stayed quiet and still, wondering what the old guy was doing during all of this. He'd been really talkative before.

"Hello there," he said, suddenly close. Parker jumped, bumping her head on the shelf above her. "Whoops," he said with a little laugh. "You okay down there?"

She crawled out of the shelf, frowning at him. He leaned down to join her, grunting softly as he dropped his knee down to the linoleum. "What's your name?" he asked.

She didn't answer, and he looked sad. "You're not stupid," he told her quietly. "Even if people don't always understand you, that doesn't make you stupid. Just…remember that for me, alright?"

She nodded, and he smiled. "Would you like a chocolate bar?" At her expression, his own softened a little. "It's—it's okay. I don't want anything for it, I promise." He pulled one off the rack, breaking off a piece for himself and eating it before offering the rest to her.

She stared at it with suspicion, shifting closer to the rack of chocolate bars—close enough to touch them. "I'm not supposed to take candy from strangers."

"Hm," he said. "Well, I'm Carter. I run this pharmacy, and I live right above it. I've been working here, oh…thirty, forty years or so."

After a long moment, she snatched it out of his hand. "You're really old," she said, stuffing it into her pocket so firmly that she had to pull her sleeves back down.

He chuckled. "I am."

"What did you do before then?"

His eyes sparkled as he grinned. He cupped his hand around his mouth, checking for anyone else nearby. "I was a spy."

Parker frowned at him.

"I was," he insisted. He smiled, nodding his head towards the back room. "Over here."

She trailed behind him, uncertain. He ducked into the back room, coming out again with a little black book, faded to brown by time and coated in dust. "This was one of our coded books," he said, opening it to show her well-worn pages. Some of them had cryptic notes penciled in, and none of them were in plain English. They actually seemed to be sports statistics or something like that. Parker stared at it with wide eyes, reaching out to feel the cover. "You can keep it, if you like," Carter offered. "It's not doing any good staying here with me. It could be like a puzzle for you, though I hope you won't take it too hard if it's too difficult to solve. I wouldn't have known the first thing written in here if I hadn't had a key."

She accepted it carefully. "It's so old," she said.

Carter nodded, smiling. "Just like me."

"It's all secret spy stuff?"

"It is," he agreed, guiding her to the door. Her dad was pacing outside; she hid the book in her clothes before he looked her way. "But you can't tell a soul about this; it was still classified, last I knew. It'll have to be just our little secret."

Parker smiled, just a little.

"Oh, and I hope you enjoy that extra chocolate bar you took," he added brightly. Parker stared at him in shock as the door closed behind her and her new dad barely acknowledged her. She touched the chocolate bar she'd stolen through her jacket sleeve. He noticed that too?

She had been able to solve that secret puzzle book of his pretty quickly, though. His added notes on impure ammonia reactions were especially helpful.


"I can't tell you. It's a secret," Parker stated.

"A secret? From me?"

"Mm-hm."

Hardison mimed being deeply wounded by that, and Eliot chuckled to himself, going back to mopping. The hacker turned to face him, rolling his eyes. "Oh, let me guess. You could tell because of his distinctive stance or whatever—"

"Hardison, I've never been there," Eliot interrupted. "I didn't even know that Bullfrog, North Dakota was a place. Besides, the guy probably stood like an eighty year old. The only thing anyone can read from that is arthritis."

Parker turned sharply on her heel to face him, her eyes narrowed. Eliot frowned at her, but she continued to stare at him, challenging. "It's weird that you don't know about the Carter Pharmacy."

Eliot threw out a hand in confusion. "How is it weird that I've never been to some tiny store in the middle of nowhere?"

"You've been everywhere."

He returned to mopping. "Obviously not."

"It's weird that you haven't been there."

"You're weird."

"No, I'm actually with Parker on this," Hardison cut in. "The fact that the two of us have both been there is a crazy coincidence, but you not being there just seems wrong somehow. Are you sure you've never been?"

Eliot met his gaze, then Parker's. He shook his head with a scoff. "I've never been there before in my life."


Bullfrog, North Dakota was the first place Eliot reached since leaving the Minot Air Force Base that didn't have a military presence. A lot had gone wrong in the last twenty-four hours, and he'd needed to get a chance to try to sort things out. He loved Aimee. He was going to come back for her; he'd made a promise, after all. And if she couldn't wait for him…well, he'd do something about that. She couldn't just walk away from him, could she?

He parked the truck he'd borrowed at the curb, turning off the headlights and jumping out. The warm spring air promised rain eventually, but for now the half moon provided plenty of light. The lights were still on at the pharmacy, luckily. He pushed the door open.

The old man behind the counter looked up from his newspaper, taking off his reading glasses. "Oh. Hello. I was just about to close up, but—"

"Can I use your phone?" Eliot said in a rush, pointing at the one on the counter.

The old man came around the counter slowly, limping every step. "Gee, I'm sorry," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "The last time that phone worked was last Tuesday. Or was it the Wednesday before that?" He hummed thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry to hear that, but I really need to make this phone call—"

"I've got it. It was a Friday!"

"Mister, I need a phone. Any phone," he ground out. "If you don't have one, tell me who does. Please."

The man gave him an unexpectedly shrewd look, scanning him from head to toe. "Gone AWOL, soldier?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "What for?"

Eliot looked down at his plaid shirt and jeans, dumbfounded. "How did you—?"

He laid a finger along his nose with a grin. "You can see a lot, if you pay attention. Now tell me, young man. Just what is so important?"

"Well, I…there's…." He looked away. "There's this girl."

"Oh," he said, eyebrows raised. The knowing tone hurt.

"It's none of your business," he snapped, turning to go. "If your phone doesn't work, I guess I'll—"

"Were you going to ask her to wait for you?" He whistled. "I don't know that you want to do that, soldier."

"My name is Eliot," he grumbled, tired of flinching every time the man called him soldier. Just because he hadn't seen any military personnel around, didn't mean there weren't any.

He smiled. "Mine is Andrew Carter. Tech Sergeant, retired. Nice to meet you."

"What would you know about it anyway?"

He chuckled. "Me? My girlfriend wrote me a Dear John letter when I was away at war. She left me for a signal man. Can you believe it? I know this might seem old fashioned to you, but I gave her a promise ring. That meant something in my day."

Eliot swallowed hard.

"I tried everything I could to get back to her," Carter said. "Lucky for me, my CO was understanding. In the end, Eliot," he said, tapping the counter. "In the end, when I came back from Germany, I realized that it was a good thing she hadn't waited."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I wasn't the same person," he said. "If she wasn't patient enough to wait for me to come back, would she really have been patient enough to learn the ways I was different?"

Eliot shook his head. "That's your girl, not Aimee. She'll understand. I don't even know for sure if she is dating somebody else."

"It's a hard job, Eliot," Carter told him quietly. "It hurts. But it can be a way for you to help people. Good people, trapped in bad situations. You're right, I don't know Aimee. Maybe she will wait for you. Maybe she will understand. But if you had to pick serving or living with Aimee for the rest of your life, which would it be?"

Eliot looked down, sliding his hands in his pockets. When it came right down to it, he'd already made his choice, hadn't he? Maybe he could still change it, but….

Carter set the phone in the middle of the counter, watching him. "You have two choices," he said. "You can call Aimee from here, or you can go back to the base right now and hopefully not get caught. It's up to you."

"I thought you said…." He began, pointing at the phone.

Carter smiled at him. "You should still call her when you can. You better believe I wrote my girl every week. But that's not the same as running out on your obligations."

After another long minute of thought, Eliot turned and walked out. He could call Aimee later. She would understand. Besides, joining the army was in part all about keeping her, keeping their country safe.

He hadn't had any idea how his life would change after that moment, hadn't thought that Andrew Carter would turn out to be so right. Oddly enough, Eliot had finally found a way that he could help some of those people trapped in bad situations, just in the company of thieves rather than in the army.


"Okay, man," Hardison said with a shrug, though he didn't look convinced. "Too bad for you, missing out like that. You know, sometimes I think you'd be more chill if you'd had more chocolate as a kid."

Eliot grunted and returned to mopping the floor.

Cleaning continued quietly for the next hour. Once it was done, the guys kicked back to watch a replay of the basketball game while Parker left, stating that she needed to run an errand. They were partway through the second quarter when she returned. "Eliot, catch!" she called.

His hand came up just in time for the large bar of quality dark chocolate to smack into it. He looked from her to it and back again. "What's this?"

She blinked at him. "I didn't want you to feel left out."

"Parker, I don't feel left out."

"Okay," she said.

"I'm serious, I don't need a…and she's gone," he stated as she walked out of the room again. He squinted at the chocolate bar as the door closed behind her.

Hardison edged closer, looking it over with a studied nonchalance. "You know, if you really don't want it, I could, uh…actually, why don't I just take that off your hands—"

Eliot smacked his hand away.

"Ow!"

"Get your own," Eliot grumbled. He tore the wrapper open and took a bite.

Hardison held up his hands. "You didn't need to hit me, you could've just said no."

Eliot shot him a sour look, chewing on the chocolate.

Hardison sighed long-sufferingly, but when he leaned back to watch the game, it was with a smile.

fin