Chapter 1
Thanks to AuthenticSuccessor1 who gave me the prompt for the story. Hope you enjoy
"So that was intense." Hardison said as he grabbed a bottle of orange soda and took a seat at the table with the rest of the crew.
"And a close call." Sophie agreed.
"Yes well I think we all need some time off." Nate said as he sipped his whiskey.
"Great." Eliot smiled. This had been a long hard job that had nearly ended badly, and they were all tired and needed to unwind.
"How long?" Parker asked already trying to decide in her head where she would go and what she would steal during their break.
"Let's say a week?" Nate offered.
"Sounds fantastic." Sophie said, she could use the break and there was a spa that she had been dying to try out.
"Good." Nate smiled looking at all of them.
"So what you going to do Nate?" Hardison asked looking at the Mastermind. He wondered what Nate did with his time when they were taking a break.
"Don't know Hardison."
"I bought a cabin up in the white mountains just off the White Mountain National Forest, its nice and peaceful up there. Good for some downtime." Eliot said and Sophie just rolled her eyes at him, that was not her idea of fun and she pictured the cabin as a sparse under equipped place with no luxuries.
"Sounds like fun." Nate said and then surprised everybody not least of all Eliot by asking if he wanted company.
"Really?" Eliot asked.
"If not no problem." Nate said he knew Eliot liked his alone time, but he really wouldn't mind getting out of the city and just taking some time out, beside he was sure Sophie would badger him to do something if he stayed at home as the break was not long enough for her to travel which she usually did when the breaks were a month or more in length.
"No…no that would be great." Eliot said smiling at him.
"Good." Nate said. "Then it's settled. When do you want to leave?"
"Tomorrow morning first light." Eliot told him.
"Ok so a week off…Eliot are you going to cook us a farewell meal?" Sophie asked looking at the Hitter who gave her a smile and a nod. He knew the loved his cooking and he loved their family meals, so it was a good deal.
"Great, well I am going to have a long shower and change, I think we all should and then meet back here later." Nate said as he climbed the stairs up to his living quarters. The others also got their things and soon the apartment was silent.
By eight o'clock that evening they found themselves sitting around the dinner table enjoying one of Eliot's meals. With the meal finished Nate had excused himself from the table and the four of them sat chatting as they finished off their meals with cups of coffee.
"So what do you do up at your cabin Eliot?" Sophie asked, she was wondering what Nate was going to do out there with the Hitter, he was not an outdoors man as far as she knew.
"Little hiking, some fishing, just relaxing." Eliot told her.
"Probably no signal or anything up there right?" Hardison said with disdain in his voice.
"That's the point Hardison."
"Well I made some new coms, ones that work very much like a satellite phone so they should work no matter where you are, and I have a satellite phone for you to take with."
"Hardison I don't want coms or a phone that work up there."
"But what if you get into trouble?" Sophie asked and Eliot suddenly smiled as understanding of what they were saying dawned on him, they were not worried about him as much as they were about Nate.
"Ok fine, I'll take them with." Eliot gave in with a sigh, he did not need to use them he thought, but it would put Sophie's and the others minds at ease, so no harm done.
Nate re-joined them at the table and the conversation was jovial until around eleven when Nate said if Eliot wanted to leave at first light he was going to go get some sleep. The others agreed and they all said their goodbyes.
"You be careful out there Nate." Sophie said as she said goodbye to him.
"I will." He smiled at her. "Enjoy the spa."
She smiled and then turned and left. Eliot stopped at the door and told Nate he would be around there to pick him up at five am. Nate nodded and then closed the door behind the Hitter before walking to the kitchen and pouring himself another whiskey and making his way up the stairs to his room to pack and sleep.
At exactly five am Eliot knocked on Nate's door to find the Mastermind packed and ready to go. They made it down to the car with Nate's bags and then Eliot set off for his cabin. It was only about a hundred and thirty miles to the cabin but the going for the last few miles was slow as the cabin was isolated and on a road that was not well maintained. Arriving at the cabin Nate climbed out the car and surveyed the place. It was a simple wood cabin on the banks of a little dam where he assumed Eliot did his fishing. The view of the national forest was spectacular and there were no other cabins in sight.
"Nice place." Nate said as he grabbed his bags and followed Eliot into the cabin.
It was sparsely furnished with a sofa and two single chairs. There was a fireplace and a small kitchen to the one side. Two bedrooms led off from the main room with one bathroom between them. The bedrooms contained a single bed with a table to the one side and a bedside table holding a lamp.
"Yeah I like it." Eliot said.
"So how often you been up here?"
"Not often, only bought it last year when we moved here." Eliot told him, he had a few cabins but had bought this one when they had relocated to Boston from LA to join up with Nate again.
"So what's on the agenda?" Nate asked as they finished putting away their things and then sat down in the living room Eliot with a cup of coffee and Nate with a glass of whiskey.
"Well I thought of doing a bit of fishing tomorrow." Eliot said. "Just taking it easy for a few days, maybe taking a hike up the little peak just the other side of the forest one of the days, it's an easy walk and a spectacular view."
"Ah…" Nate smiled at him. Well I don't really fish but I brought a good book with, so you do your thing and I'll do mine, but the hike sounds good."
"Great." Eliot said he had not expected Nate to do any of the physical exercise with him, but it would be good for the Mastermind to be out and the hike was not a difficult one. "Now I am going to get us some firewood, it gets quite chilly here in the evenings."
"Anything I can help with."
"No nothing, just relax Nate enjoy." Eliot said then walked out the cabin to chop some wood for the fire.
Nate watched him go and then smiled and sat back in the chair, it was good to be out of the city. He picked up his book and opened it up.
The day passed quickly with Eliot doing odd jobs around the cabin, making sure that the firewood was stocked and then setting about making them dinner. Nate sat reading and occasionally dozing off in the chair, he had not been this relaxed in a long time.
"So did you go hunting and fishing with your dad?" Nate asked as they sat at the dinner table eating the meal Eliot had prepared.
"Yeah…" Eliot said. "He loved the outdoors. "
Nate watched the Hitters face and saw the emotions at play, it was not something anybody else would pick up, but Nate was attuned to his people and he could see when they were struggling with something. He sat quietly and sipped on his whiskey waiting for the Hitter to continue.
"It was great you know, camping trips, fishing, and hiking. He taught me to shoot, how to hunt…We went to football games and he never missed one of mine…he was always there." Eliot said not quite knowing why he was telling the man this because he never spoke about his father, his home, or his upbringing, he buried those memories those feelings but with Nate he somehow felt safe, safe enough to let them out.
"Sounds like a good childhood, a good father."
"He was." Eliot said rising and pouring himself a whiskey and refilling Nate's glass placing the bottle the table between them. "Until he wasn't."
Nate raised his eyebrows but said nothing just waiting and letting Eliot frame his thoughts and put them into words.
"When my mom…died." Eliot said and Nate could hear the emotion that was welling up in the man. "He…he couldn't cope, he started to drink and…well things got really bad."
Nate knotted his eyebrows slightly. So his father drank and obviously he was not a very pleasant drunk. He felt a pang of guilt at this behaviour and actions during the years they were together and the many times he and Eliot had come to logger heads about his drinking.
"He didn't mean it, I know but he hated himself, he blamed himself for her death and he…he cut us off, cut himself off and drowned his pain, his guilt. He was a…well he was not a good drunk. Anyway I got out as soon as I could, I joined the army and thought that would…I don't know give me something. My sister left too, she got married straight out of high school, it was a mistake but…well she and her son are doing well now."
Still Nate said nothing as he sat and listened to the man giving him time and just being there. Eliot looked up from his glass and met Nate's eyes and the Mastermind saw the emotional pain that Eliot had unleashed with this conversation. He had suspected that Eliot's childhood had been hard, and he had suspected his father had abused him physically.
"I…I never went back. I tried once, after that job with the hospital, but…" Eliot sighed. "Either he wasn't home, or he didn't want to see me, either way…I haven't seen him since I was eighteen." Eliot said then cleared his throat and looked up at Nate again. "What about your dad, he do anything like this with you?"
"No, no he didn't." Nate said downing the last of his whiskey before refilling his glass and offering Eliot who declined.
"So no father son trips at all?" Eliot asked.
Nate looked at him and shook his head, he did not like talking about his father, about his childhood or his life really, but Eliot had shared with him. He took a sip of whiskey and then cleared his throat.
"No my dad as you know was a…fixer and a bookie for the various families. He held court in McRory's and from when I was about six or seven he took me with. I spent my childhood watching him break fingers and threaten people, learning the trade as it were." Nate said thinking back to those days sitting on the bar and watching his father work. "My mom hated that, she did not want me to be part of that life and it caused…problems…especially when he had been drinking which was most of the time." Nate said remembering the fights his parents had had about his upbringing.
"I mean he did take me to the ball games. We would spend a lot of time at Fenway Park, I loved going to those games, it was the only time he was really like a…dad to me." Nate said feeling his own emotions build as he spoke about it.
"I never wanted to be like him, to be…in the business." Nate said softly almost ashamed of that fact, not because of his father or his family but because of his new family, because they were criminals, something he had tried to avoid being all his life. Now he was one, one of them and he was happy to be, content with who he was and that surprised him slightly as well.
"Anyway he went to jail for the Families, to protect them. I suppose they were supposed to take care of us for doing that, but they didn't, and it was a struggle from there for my mom." Nate said. He had never forgiven his father for abandoning his mother, for leaving her without means. He knew his mother loved his father and he could never quite understand why considering the type of man he was.
"So you joined the seminary when you left school." Eliot asked refilling his and Nate's glasses again.
"Yeah…I had always found peace in the church, I was an alter boy and the priest encouraged me to study, to learn and I somehow felt more at home there than at home." Nate said looking up at the Hitter. He was not sure why he was talking to Eliot about this, but he was and there was not stopping now. "I did feel the calling in a way, but…" Nate smiled slightly and then chuckled. "It was not me you know, being all forgiving and accepting. In the end I suppose I was too much like my father." Nate said and Eliot thought he heard a little bit of disgust at himself in Nate's tone.
"So how did you become an Insurance Cop?"
"Luck I suppose. Due to my dad's occupation I had a lot of insight into crime and how things were done. I had gone to college after dropping out of seminary school and got a degree in statistics, putting things together in my head, figuring things out that was a talent of mine. One day I saw an advert for the job and applied. I was fresh out of college and I wanted to put criminals away but did not want to be a cop so…"
"An Insurance Cop."
"Yeah." Nate said. "Turns out I was quite good at it."
"Yeah you were." Eliot conceded, Nathan Ford was one of the most feared investigators in his time.
"Anyway, I think I am going to head off to bed, this fresh air takes it out of you." He smiled at Eliot. "Thanks for dinner."
"Pleasure Nate, sleep well." Eliot said then watched the man walk into his room and close the door.
Eliot cleared the table and did the dishes then took a seat on one of the comfortable chairs in front of the fire. It had been a long time since he had thought of his childhood and his father and he somehow felt better having spoken to Nate, to verbalise his feelings, his emotions. He doubted he would have done that with anybody else.
They had only been together as a team for little over two years, but Nate was different, he was more than just their leader and Mastermind, he was somebody Eliot trusted unconditionally, despite the bullshit stunts he had pulled, and he did not trust anybody, at least not since he had left the army. Then he smiled as he thought about this family that Nate had put together, Parker, Hardison and Sophie. His family, Aimee had said it two years ago, they were his family and Nate had given that to him, he had saved him even though he did not know it or mean to, he was a drunk, he was broken, but despite that he had saved him and given him something he had never realised he needed, a family.