A/N: For archival purposes and because I like having all my stories in the same place, I'm posting this one here. Perhaps you've come across it already. If not, enjoy the journey, and feel free to comment. :)

Reckoner

Reckoner

You can't take it with you

Dancing for your pleasure

You are not to blame for

Bittersweet distractors

Dare not speak his name

Dedicated to all human beings

Because we separate

Like ripples on a blank shore

In rainbows

Reckoner

Take me with you

Dedicated to all human beings

(Radiohead, In Rainbows)

Chapter 1: Reckoner

The first thing that hit him was the smell. After all this time, it shouldn't have surprised him – filth was everywhere, especially in his line of work. But it was more than that he realized, more than the result of simple neglect or poverty. It was despair, and it gave him pause. Surely a place like that wouldn't house the person he was looking for. His job was to get the asset out alive, so that the poor bastard could pay what he was due. With his life, more than likely, but that was above his pay-grade, and hopefully not something he would have to participate in.

Sometimes, he cared. But tonight, he didn't. Tonight, he just wanted to get this over with, go home, and get some sleep. He wondered when he had stopped minding about the job. When he had become so desensitized. There was clearly a before and an after. But the before seemed to slip further and further away after each passing day doing what he did. It hadn't been by choice at first, oh no, quite the contrary. And yet, gradually, disgust had turned into habit. And his self-worth a distant memory.

Although, not just quite, he soon realized, when the smell in the air was supplanted by another sensation. A sound. One that every human being seemed to be automatically programed to recognize and gravitate towards, half anxious, half determined – a baby's cries.

He lowered his hands. His right one held a gun, and his left a torch, forming a makeshift cross to a God that had deserted him long ago. Because who in their right mind would leave a baby here? Probably a stupid question, as many of the people he dealt with were high on enough substances to make them forget just about anything. But a kid?

The job was supposed to be a simple one. Hit the place, find the guy, don't rough him up too badly, and bring him to the boss. But he'd searched the tiny Inglewood house top to bottom already, and he was on his third sweep when he'd started hearing the cries. Mando was a lot of things, but he was no slouch at this. He found people. He could map out any place instantly and flush out anyone in a matter of minutes. That thing had been ingrained in him early on, and only reinforced by his military training.

He turned towards the sound, and found a lump behind cardboard boxes he had discarded early on in his search as being neither interesting nor threatening. A lump consisting of a dirty brown blanket, dark curly hair, huge brown eyes, and a runny nose. His shoulders dropped. It was a kid, alright. No doubt about it now. He approached cautiously, holding the torch against his neck and re-holstering his gun behind his back. He'd done it subconsciously – surely if he had been in his right mind, he would have kept his weapon. How could he be certain this wasn't some elaborate trick? But the brown eyes beckoned him, and the tears against the toddler's cheeks shone brightly in the unforgiving light.

The torch in his left hand once more, he came closer to the bundle. The child was now hiccupping, he thought. It was hard to say, the thing was so small. Standing right above him, Mando could see that the kid himself was dirty. His hair matted and his hands filthy.

"Hey," he whispered.

Said hands were now raised in his direction. That gave Mando pause. It was a show of trust. The kid wasn't trying to protect himself, he was asking to be picked up in a sign so universal that even someone as clueless as him could decipher it. But why was this child trusting him? He could be anyone. He was anyone. And yet the brown eyes seemed quite sure, and the cries had stopped.

So Mando did the only thing that made sense and picked the kid up, holding him gently by his sides, the torch now illuminating the ceiling. How old was he? One, two? It looked like a boy, but who knew. He was very bad at that kind of thing. In any case, the lump weighed nothing, even though the smelly diaper he was wearing probably made up for half its heft.

Brown met brown when they were at eye level and Mando was struck at how quiet and still the bundle with small hands and feet had become. He didn't know how long the staring contest lasted but they were interrupted by a loud noise, coming from downstairs.

Someone had just entered the house.

Mando had no time to wonder whether it was his asset, the kid's guardian or a burglar before he started hearing the stairs creaking under heavy feet.

Decisions, decisions.

In the end, he made the only rational choice possible, and put the toddler back on the floor, although he was surprised to note that the decision had cost him. His first instinct had been to either hide with the kid or find another way to exit the place, bundle in tow.

Snap out of it, Mando. You've come in here for a job. Focus on the kid later.

He quickly clicked his lamp off, and backed up against the wall, hoping the shadows would provide enough cover. That changed when the intruder decided to switch on the light in the room upon entering. Something Mando hadn't done in favor of discretion. But the startled cry of the kid made sure he had become the sole focus of the mysterious arrival, and allowed Mando to quietly hide behind a ratty armchair.

The man – he could now see him better so there was no doubt – had come straight to the right room when entering the house. Either he knew that the kid was there, or he had been told. There was little doubt in Mando's mind that the new guest wasn't the kid's father, if the balaclava he was wearing and the heavy duty gloves adorning his hands were any indication. He was a pro.

Mando prided himself of also being a pro, but he wasn't wearing gloves. He'd been careful not to touch anything important by habit, but it just hadn't been that kind of job. The kind of job where you didn't want to leave your DNA lying around. Especially when his prints were so readily available to any cop who would start prodding.

The gloves were a dead giveaway, no pun intended. The man had come in to kill someone. And Mando hoped briefly that his asset would choose that moment to come out of his secret hideout and prove to him that it had simply been a case of a two-man bounty, but his pipe dream was unceremoniously crushed when the black-clad hitman approached the child and lowered his hand to grab at something in his pocket.

Mando didn't give him the time to reach whatever it was, though. He propelled himself against his back and the element of surprise was enough to bring the bigger man down with a groan. Although he had good upper body strength and the muscles to show it, Mando knew as soon as he toppled his opponent that he would have to be creative if he wanted to keep the upper hand. His reaction had been automatic, but what he should have done was raising his own gun. He just wasn't certain he would have had the time to fire before the other guy.

Mando rolled to the floor swiftly and avoided the first punch to his stomach, but not the second. He released a pained grunt and rolled again, his feet kicking almost blindly at the arm he could just see reaching for his pocket again. His opponent's gun fell to the floor with a heavy thud, but Mando didn't have the time to stand up before he was once more on the receiving end of a well-aimed punch directly in his face. He saw stars for a couple of seconds, then quickly encircled the other man's knees from his prone position.

There was no choreography to this. Once they both found themselves on the ground, they both hit what they could. Sides, bellies, thighs, heads… The ultimate goal of the now hissing man – thanks to a strategically placed elbow – was to pick up his gun again. It wasn't lying far, and Mando was at war with himself over whether he should do everything in his gradually diminishing power to prevent this, or to reach for his own weapon, which he could feel painfully digging at his back with every push. Once someone had a hold of a gun, it would be game over. Mando knew this. Just as well as he knew there was no way they could keep at this for very long. He was winded, in pain, and despite the rush of adrenaline his ears were ringing. If he hadn't been getting his ass kicked, he would have taken a second to admire his adversary's style.

Then the child suddenly screamed louder than his small body should have allowed him to. It was clear that they had both completely forgotten about the kid's presence when they froze. But this gave Mando enough time to realize that he hadn't come in just armed with a gun. His right boot, conveniently located above him in his attempt to push the heavier man off him, held his knife. And in a last, desperate move he reached out for it quickly, released the switchblade and sliced at the air, connecting with flesh.

Whatever people said about him, he never liked this part. Hearing someone drowning in his own blood was not, in any shape or form, a sound he liked hearing. Even when it was far from the first time.

Mando rolled away and stood up, avoiding most of the mess he'd made, and pointed the knife at the fallen man, although he was pretty sure he wouldn't be standing up any time soon. After a full minute of silence, he finally put the knife back in his boot.

Silence. But that couldn't be right. Fearing he'd somehow harmed the kid who'd been screaming his little heart out only recently, Mando turned quickly in the direction of the last place he'd seen the brown eyed child. That is, the spot he'd always been. The toddler hadn't moved. Not one inch. And when Mando came closer, he was welcomed by the same sight as before.

Small, dirty hands, reaching out to him.

Knowing in his heart that nothing would be stopping him now, Mando picked the kid up, stared at the inquiring eyes once more, and placed the dirty bundle against his chest. The small lump emitted a sigh, as if all was right with the world once more, and Mando's ears started ringing again, but for a different reason. One he didn't comprehend just yet. It was just instinct, he thought. To press the little face gently against his shoulder and hold him fast, for fear something terrible would happen if he didn't.

Mando wasn't sure how long he stood there, with one body on the ground slowly cooling down and another, far smaller, gently warming his side. But decisions had to be made. Always, decisions. He had to do something about the couple of ribs he was pretty sure were cracked if not broken on his right side, the cut above his eyebrow that was still bleeding and his painful, throbbing wrist. But first he had to get out of there. What to do with the kid didn't require a decision. It was obvious – the child was going wherever he was going.

Now once more focused on a single goal, Mando went to work quickly, the kid never leaving his left side. He switched out the light, hoping stupidly that it would be enough not to attract any more visitors (who knew, in this neighborhood?), picked up his torch again and went through the dead man's pockets.

He didn't find much, unsurprisingly. People wouldn't find much if they were to go through his own pockets either. He'd left his phone, wallet, keys and anything that could be linked to him in the car outside, parked two blocks away in a side street. It was the same with this guy, except for one handwritten note and a distinctive tattoo on a heretofore hidden wrist. The number 13, clearly visible in a place where a pulse used to be.

"Shit," Mando couldn't help but utter.

La Eme. This complicated things. A lot.

Mando breathed in deeply and pressed on, knowing that he would soon be out of time. More would come. More always came.

The note required more time to decipher. It was written in Spanish, which wasn't a problem for Mando, but some words were difficult to read. He thought he recognized the address of the ramshackle Inglewood house he was kneeling in, then a few words were underlined. One that started with an M and might or might not have been his name and then two short words that didn't require much speculation.

El niño. The child.

Before he could start the flow of questions in his mind that wanted to reconcile what the Mexican Mafia wanted to do with the kid and what it meant if his name was indeed on the piece of paper, Mando stood up for the last time, and after a cursory look around the place (there was nothing that could be done now about his prints or the blood he'd shed), reassuring himself that the child was still securely pressed against his side, he exited the small house.

He kept a steady pace all the way to his car, his heart beating wildly. Had he been seen? Was he being followed? Were people looking out their window and watching him? He deeply regretted having parked so far, but never in a million years could he have imagine that he'd make the trip back with a toddler and not a protesting, if subdued, grown man.

Once inside his truck though, he was forced to stop and think. Where to, now? The most obvious choice would be to go to his boss. And figure out with him why the hell a rival gang was given the same address as him. And seemed to know a lot deal more about the asset he had been supposed to pick up.

Mando even reached for his phone, which he had kept hidden under his seat. But once faced with the blank, switched off screen, he hesitated. Calling was probably a bad idea. Especially if people from La Eme had known where to find him. Someone or something had snitched his location. He couldn't be sure that he wasn't being spied on. But driving to their current HQ was similarly rejected. If someone had been listening in on his conversations, then there was also a good chance he was being tailed. Their headquarters had to remain secret. The phone stayed off, and his keys in the ignition.

Sighing, he realized that the kid was still against his shoulder. Of course he was, he hadn't moved him. But he'd also strangely gotten used to the weight against his side. And the smell, he thought with a shudder. That diaper desperately needed to be changed. The child must have felt miserable. And yet when he turned towards him again, he only read quiet curiosity in the big brown eyes. Not fear or apprehension. Mando wondered if the kid had been drugged, given how passive he was. But surely they would have made him sleepy instead of complacent and trusting.

Mando decided to look at him a bit more closely, hoping that he would find a clue regarding his identity or the role he'd played in tonight's highly unanticipated drama. But under the ratty brown blanket, he found that the child was only wearing his nasty smelling diaper and socks that might once have been white. His movements stopped short when he saw dark marks on each side of his chest. For one terrible second, he feared that he had caused them when he picked him off the floor. But the bruises looked old, though no less scary. Someone had hurt this kid, and Mando almost hoped that the man he'd left dead two blocks away had been responsible for it. Just for the satisfaction of having ended his life.

The child started whimpering when his hand strayed too long on one particular bruise. The decision had been made for him, then. He couldn't go to his boss, and he couldn't go home, as his place was probably being watched. But he also couldn't leave the kid as he was, especially if he started crying again. Seeing tears forming in his huge round eyes turned his blood cold. The kid had to see a doctor. He needed to be checked out. As uncomfortably good as he was at treating his own (regular) injuries, this was a child. A baby. He was unfit.

That word wouldn't leave his mind as he slowly drove to a clinic he knew in Hyde Park, using small side streets, with his headlights off, the kid still carefully cradled against his side.

Unfit.