He doesn't need to plead a case - there is a case.
Arrives at the barn in the morning, knowing he has the drive in the evening to look forward to. Coming noon - completely forgets about his weekend plans. They deal with anthrax, of all things. Marlo and the new girl got the stuff all over them, and to further complicate things - it was spread by cocaine. Drug supply and buyers are, of course, always easy to uncover, right?
It's Ollie's hand on his shoulder, accompanied by 'Tell Sarah I said hi' that draws him out of his dreams about a shower and bed, reminding him that he is an only uncle again. And that uncle has duties: Sarah's 15 year anniversary calls for a weekend away from the crew and he was designated (read: pestered for months) for the task (considering the rest are either on tour overseas or completing a thesis in Caltech - only uncle available is an understatement).
It doesn't help that things are going nowhere with the McNally mystery.
Hearing arraignment for targets of project Dakota began this week - task force concluded - busts were made on all fronts, every UC operative, of any agency, related to the task force is home, safely tucked in their real lives and identities. Yet -
No McNally.
The following day after the call from the realtor, Nash 'bumped' into Tommy, outside an AA meeting. Looking for Dex as her cover story (knowing full well her ex is with their son, in her house), she managed to ascertain once again - Tommy haven't seen his daughter for months. Haven't gone to her apartment, either.
Another dead end.
Those theories he doesn't want to share with anyone? Some allow him hope.
(The thought of McNally being cooped up somewhere, under, with a team and back up, in some op, is something he can live with. Yet chances a pretty slim. The other option - that McNally just ran away, that he caused her to walk away and never look back, just like her mother - turns his veins to ice. Surprisingly, he still hopes that's the case - she's not in any danger that way, not more than usual.
His worst nightmare? McNally in a witness protection program. It combines the theories he can actually live with, in the worst ways. )
The crew don't care about his love life, his work life. Well, not anymore - Owen keeps playing secret agents, he is told, the espionage sort of cover. Jake and Luce got the wakeup call after Brennan. They just let him into their lives. Drama and problems of their respected ages. And the comedy. Oh, the comedy... most of it is cringe worthy, but some of it is golden, small stories they might as well tell for the rest of their lives.
For a moment he pretends they are all there is in his world. They distract him in the best of ways, the crew. He's calm, relaxed. Truly and completely so.
He needs that right now.
He arrives close to midnight, says hi to his brother-in-law and retreats to the guestroom.
The next morning he wakes up, says goodbye to his sister and Mark, (Sarah's giving him that look. She suspects foul play. He wonders if he should frighten her with Anthrax or ask Ollie to vouch for him. Which side is Shaw on, anyway? Traitor) makes sure Jake and Luce make their bus and drives Owen to school.
(What a sweet life the little one leads, having a chauffeur and his mom at his beck and call at every recess. On the other hand - the poor fellow cannot get away with feigning sickness to his teachers: they just send him to the lie detector a few doors down. Sarah takes a look, gives a look and goes back to making sure no first grader is eating glue. )
He goes about the house. Mark left him a list with things he should fix. Sarah and Mark can hold their own, they just choose to spend their money on their family and not tools. And of course, there's the universal law - do not use a tool you do not have the skill for.
Knowing the safety and comfort of his closest family resides in preforming these tasks to a t, he does his best to focus.
He imagines teaching these skills to Jake, standing there next to him. Details out loud every step of the way. He tried imagining Luce, with her quirk questions and unique perspective. She has a creative soul, the munchkin.
Problem was: Luce kept morphing into McNally. Well, not exactly McNally: the figure kept its stature, but her smile was McNally's, and her eyes were McNally's. With early teen features, and very familiar dimples.
So-
Jake.
Done with his tasks, he sets out to pick up his sous chef and groceries - tonight on the menu: lasagna. Owen kindly informs him that he - as an enlightened fourth grader- does not eat meat.
"Excuse me?"
"Or fish. Or anything which had a mother," the little guy elaborates.
"Great." Do eight-year-olds know to decipher sarcasm? How about pained smiles?
(Daphne, this is Daphne's doing. And maybe Mark. Owen does not get this empathy from his side of the family, that's for sure.
This time he hears her voice in his head:
'This kid, huh? What a heart.')
"Does this has anything to do with Daphne?"
"No. I just don't want to eat my friends."
"Okay, okay. So what do we do about the lasagna?"
Back from the groceries run (there's a first time for everything, even spinach lasagna), they find the rest of the crew already at home. Then there's homework and meal prep. The hour until the food's ready is a basketball tournament, out on the patio. They take turns, Mr. Hotshot and him, with the height-challenged crew members. And Jake really doesn't mind he's never on his uncle's team - kiddo has something to prove.
It's a tie, of sorts.
Apparently one tray of lasagna almost isn't enough for one meal, let alone two - there's one, lone piece left, when the table's cleared. He stashes it at the back of the fridge, hoping Mark might get a chance to taste and weep. He's not counting on it, though: he keeps forgetting just how much food a teen aged boy might consume when given an opportunity.
As Owen speeds his way towards the TV, the rest stay at the kitchen - clear the table, wash the dishes, and then just sit and talk.
An unusual occurrence for teens their age, yet that's what they do.
Luce has a crush she refuses to name.
"Hey Luce, Luce! We just want to make sure that they're not a bad influence on you, that's it." He says 'we' but he's quite sure Jake has other intentions in mind.
"It has nothing to do with teasing you, or intimidating them," Jake promises with a smile which, Luce should have already learned, does not imply trustworthiness.
"In your dreams, Cookie" They are related! A wise kid, this young one is.
"Cookie? Am I missing something?"
Apparently Jake had already attracted the attention of the girls on the bus.
Cookie, formerly known as kiddo, Jake and 'Not that!', actually blushes.
It's time to change the subject.
He does need some dirt on his sister, come to think of it.
They spend the rest of the evening with stories about the mishap of one or the other, foolish thing their parents do and filling him in about, everything basically. They want him to know everything, it seems, like maybe they want to show him what he misses when he's not down for a visit more often. They miss him.
Well, what they really miss - are the guys who aren't there. His brother-in-law's siblings, which barely get to see the crew. Only on selected holidays, once in a blue moon. Those two weeks in the summer they spend with Daphne. Or a conference, or something.
Next day they make their way to the park - a weekend with their uncle must consist of the right amount of sports. These include basketball, ultimate Frisbee and maybe some soccer.
Kids have plenty of energy, he's reminded yet again.
They rustle him to the ground.
"For lord and land!" Owen charged at him.
(Mark has a thing with Lord of the Rings, it's his decided rites of passage for the kids)
Luce and Jake just looked at each other for two seconds and ran right after him.
Surprisingly, they don't trade his freedom for ice cream, even though that was Owen initial goal.
"Pizza. With the good stuff," Luce demands.
Even more surprising - the good stuff means goat cheese. Are those kids or 26-year-old hipsters?
They do make some mean homemade pizza, watch a movie. The first casualty is carried to bed halfway through. The second sees the credits through drooping eyelids and is ushered to brush her teeth and be done with it, the third is a tough sell -
"How's the deck going?"
"Halfway through prep. There's still plenty to go, if you want to come and chip in."
"You're the worst! You do know that, right?" The teen groans.
"What about furniture? Specifically, that TV, and maybe a comfortable couch I can actually sleep on?"
Jake's relentless. The kid actually makes him do a list which details what is needed for each room in the house to be complete. Writes it all down. When they're done and he's skims over it, he stops at 'General'. There's one, single, entry -
'your person'.
Is this an intervention themed weekend? Sarah's gonna pop from behind the curtains?
This is nephew warfare.
"Hey!" There's a hand waving in front of his face. "Can I have a beer?"
"No."
"Just a sip!"
"No."
The teen retreats, looking subdued, for all the world. He knows better.
(It's not like the kid never tasted beer, or he doesn't count on him to drink responsibly. Beer and wine are part of their family dinners, the kids are with the adults drinking - it isn't some big secret which will make it more alluring. He's underage and his parents are not around - It's simple math. )
(Also, the wrath of Sarah is a lot worse than Zoe's. So-)
"Jake," he stresses the 'a' while standing up, "give me the key."
"What key?"
They all get they're acting skills from their father. Have no problem with omitting, it's the 'Well, I'll just play dumb' in their game plans that always gets them.
"The key to the studio. Come on, hand it over."
('The studio' is what used to be a garage in its previous life and now is where Sarah keeps all her photography equipment. It also happens to be where alcohol is stashed in this house. There's even a small fridge.)
He thinks he hears a 'damn it' under a breath, and the key lands in his outstretched hand. He, of course, immediately pockets it and charges for his nephew.
Thus ensues the great battle of 2013.
It takes more than a few minutes to subdue the teen. They're not on a mat or something that can cushion a fall, and he tries his best not to hurt the kid, basically.
Rustling the laughing teen through the door, he bids Jake good night, and goes in search for that beer his nephew was planning on.
The battle ended with a truce. The trade was an earlier bedtime for a karting outing sometimes soon, and his uncle promise to consider a playing console in his now finished basement.
He just needs a few moments to himself, before sleep takes him and he'll wake up to a world where the main narrative that goes through his mind is not his own. It's Owen's or Luce's or even Jake's.
It's a good thing, having their narrative drown his mind, it's the exact effect he was going for. Yet he still needs a moment. So he can actually fall asleep - Jake pushed that button, the one that plagues him with worry for over a month now, that has been hounding him with pain for more than six.
He's looking for something to distract himself, just for a bit.
He wanders to the studio, looking for a beer and a few copies he was promised and then denied, Sarah's reasons. She thinks she knows better. She can drive him crazy sometimes.
Settles on a manila folder. Knowing Sarah, if it's in a folder she haven't gone through this batch yet, and if she was here she wouldn't let him go near it, muttering something about thievery.
He makes his way back to the living room, takes a sit on the couch, takes a sip of beer and takes the stack out.
A family dinner. The crew at the beach, in the park, outside in the backyard. She's an amazing photographer, his sister. Plays with light and shadow, able to catch moments beautifully - Most of the frames on the walls at his place came from her. There are some with landscapes, some of the home and it's occupants - Mark in the kitchen, flipping a pancake in the air. The crew around the counter, waiting for breakfast.
The same thoughts go through his mind every time he catches a glimpse of this family moments, seemingly uncensored -'Do I have this in store for me?'
Owen asleep on the couch, about to be picked up for bed but not quite, Jake at a hockey game-
He's just trying to understand what he's looking at for a few moments.
It's her.
He'll know those doe eyes anywhere. And he hasn't seen them in months (for a guy in love with a woman for three years, being together for almost a year - he doesn't have a single photo. What a joke.)
It's only her eyes, but he can tell she's smiling, content.
She takes up the whole frame. There is no background to supply clues, there are no inscriptions on the back of the print. Nothing.
It's a single photo. He quickly goes through the whole stack, but it is.
His inner narrative sounds a lot like a toddler first time differing wh-questions from the rest of the English language.
How did this photo get here? Who took it? Why is it here? When was it taken? Is he imagining things now?
He falls asleep on the couch, wakes up to Owen's ice cold hands on his face. He's an early bird, the little monster. Takes him a minute or two to catch his bearing and he's up in search of coffee. Sipping on his steaming cup, he walks back to the living room.
Owen runs up to him, holding a photo. That's Owen, on one of the last days of the previous year, according to his nephew. You see, he's wearing the shirt grade three got at the end of last year. The entire school went on a field day, so that's a lot of kids. And you can't really tell a grade four you don't need to count from a grade three you need to count. That's what the colors are for.
(It's also a way to give less fortunate kids a new shirt to wear, without it feeling like charity.
They do the same thing with hoodies in the winter.)
"It's red, and usually I don't wear red. But I was brave for my class and I wore it."
"Real brave. What is it with red?"
The little one just shrugs. Before he has a chance to come up with a way to solve this 'red riddle', Luce appears from around the corner, already dressed for the day.
Apparently they're going kart racing. Well, that's part of his debt paid.
They spend the day outside, after. He's not sure if it's a good or bad, for his well-being. Being cooped up inside the house, with board games and movies might have been more distracting, but he would have zoned out, and the kids would have noticed. And Sarah would be on his case, with Jake as her wing man.
They never met, McNally and Sarah. Heck, Sarah has not been to Toronto since before he even knew McNally.
He's quite sure his sister doesn't even know McNally's name.
Has Oliver truly crossed the line into pulling this kind of pranks? For all he knows this photo has been sitting here since June, planted and waiting for him to find it. Is this part of Sarah's big plan?
He's a trained UC officer, a detective. He knows when someone's trying to play him. He didn't expect this kind of cruelty from his sister.
He also needs to consider other options, except an attempt to goad him in extremely bad taste.
(Oliver wouldn't do that. Oh, he would do it, but the brother is decent enough to know to call it off...maybe he forgot? With everything going on...
Ollie wouldn't cross the lines this way. Not while McNally is out of the picture. While she was under, or is, for all they know. It's-
What the- Ouch.
Having lost his balance from the hit he lands on his ass, in the sand.
Luce's runs up to him, looking alarmed. She threw a volleyball that just hit her uncle in the shoulder. Hard.
He zoned out while playing ball with his niece and nephews.
Great.
"I'm okay. I'm okay. I'll just sit this one out, alright? Luce - you're switching teams."
Takes a seat against a tree, takes a long drink of water and settles in to watch the crew play volleyball without him. It's a sand pit, they'll be just fine.
And again:
Yeah, this isn't like his sister and Ollie.
The other option he considers: Sarah took this shot. She actually met McNally.
...How in the name of...just, how? And why didn't Sarah say anything?
'Hey, I ran into someone who knows you, guess who.'
Really, anything.
This photo alarms him. More than anything they uncovered so far, this picture alarms him. His mind is in an utter jumble. He cannot think straight, it sends him to so many possibilities, some of them are nightmares, others are just ridiculous.
He feels himself getting overwhelmed, he should do what he does best.
Push it down, shut it out.
He needs to have a talk with his sister.
Now back to having fun.
A/N: I know we're complete as we are, but Sam's a character in a tv show. He's not complete without the other part of the OTP.
Sooo, I'm back. Had a lot going on, was also kinda stuck.
Until next time,
totheboats