The Ocean's Job
Disclaimer: I do not own Oceans 11 or 12 or The Italian Job or any characters or plot lines relating to them.
Kuriei137, Darkdestiney2000 and Nina, thanks heaps for reviewing, hope you like this next chap.
Saul sat up slightly as Gloria entered the room with a tray of tea. "What's wrong?" She asked gently placing the tray on the table.
Saul shook his head in denial. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell Gloria, but he had never told her about his past as a thief, and he knew she wouldn't react well if he did now.
"What did Danny want?"
Saul sighed and decided for a half truth, "The past few years Danny's been training this kid, and his parents died a few days ago." Gloria sat silently waiting for him to continue "I didn't really know them, I think we may have met a few years back."
"Are you going to go to the memorial?"
"No," Saul answered "It's already happened." After Eric had called him with the news he had called Rusty, but after three failed attempts he called Reuben who informed him that Danny Rusty and Linus had gone to see Matsui (Saul could almost hear the laugh in his voice) and hadn't returned yet. Saul hadn't been surprised he knew before Reuben, no matter how many times he would say he was out of the game people would call him with even the most unimportant news, and this was certainly not unimportant.
After hearing what Saul knew of the story Reuben hadn't spoken for a moment then muttered something about the kid, when Saul had questioned him Reuben explained that Danny had told him Bobby was the kid's father. Saul hadn't been surprised, he always knew the kid had been raised by a thief, making a lift came too naturally for him not to have been.
Saul remembered one night in Vegas, the twins had been dragging Linus out on the town with them, and an old man had bumped into the kid as they were leaving the hotel, the man then turned around and told Linus off about not watching where he was going, the kid had given him an innocent smile and said sorry before dragging the twins outside. The whole team had seen the exchange, but Saul was certain that himself, Reuben, Danny and Rusty were the only who saw the kid take the man's wallet when he turned back before he had even starting yelling.
It was a reflex, too natural for someone who wasn't trained from a young age. However Saul had assumed he was raised by someone older than Bobby. The kid was old fashioned, that had been one of the first things everyone noticed about him, next to being quiet, naive and green. It came out in his manners more than anything else, after the incident with the old man the twins, who Linus had had to drag away from yelling at the man, had liked messing with him, just to see if they could get a rise out of him. Saul had been happy to see that after failing the first week they got bored and moved on to messing with Livingston.
After the funeral Danny had called to tell Saul they were going to LA and asking if he'd come, Saul hadn't been surprised by the request he'd known Danny a long time, he was persistent, and not use to not getting his way. When Saul asked how the kid was doing Danny paused for a moment before saying 'ok.' Danny went on to give him a quick recount of the past day and how he hadn't really spoken to anyone except John and Stella, Saul thought he sounded a little jealous, of course Danny had denied it, honestly sometimes Saul doubted that he had ever grown up.
Danny spotted John over by the sliding doors and turned towards him, he looked tired like he hadn't slept properly in the past few days, not that anyone could blame him for that.
After a quick introduction they divided off into cars, "How are they?" Danny asked John as they left.
"Alright," he answered eyes not moving from in front of him "Surprised I guess, angry." Danny just nodded and decided not to press, it was obvious the other man didn't want to talk about it.
The silence was broken by Rusty asking Charlie about Steve. They spoke about the job and organised a base plan, easily changed of course, they hadn't seen the house yet.
Danny noticed the buildings thinning around them and turned to John, who was sitting beside him driving, "Should we check into a hotel?"
John seemed surprised by the question but then smiled a little turning back to Danny "You've never been to the Caldwell's before." It wasn't a question. "No, Annie wouldn't have heard of it, you can stay at the house." John chuckled lightly and muttered "wow, got to hand it to Linus, he really did beat himself out of it." John paused and sat up a bit straighter as if he had just thought of something, "speaking of which, how well do you know Lenny?"
Danny though for a moment before answering slowly, "Alright, how is he?"
John didn't respond for a moment. He looked worried and Danny began to wonder just how long he had known the kid. It was obvious John had know Linus a lot longer than he had, probably since he really was just a kid. "I've seen him on better days," John said slowly, "He's keeping himself busy, Stella's worried." Off Danny's questioning look he added, "My daughter, Bobby looked after her while I was locked up."
"Right," Danny wished he had something more to say, he always had something to say, improvisation was one of his strong point, but now he was coming up blank.
As the car slowed down Danny looked out at the large cream coloured house and made sure that nothing he was thinking was shown on his face 'they'd definitely all fit here.'
Walking in Danny only gave himself a moment to admire the old staircase and portraits, Tess had taught him a bit about paintings and architecture, Danny guessed from the staircase the house had been built around the late 1800's.
"The others should get here in just a minute," John told him absently as he opened a door as if looking for someone before frowning and closing it again.
"Who are you looking for?" Danny asked as John walked over to another door.
"The kids, we'll have to go soon" John shrugged as he shut the last door, "they'll be here" John said turning back to him, but John was off his game and Danny could tell he was trying to convince himself of that.
Rusty listened to the priest's short eulogy and had to give the kid some credit for managing to find a priest who would perform a ceremony on deaths that wouldn't even be in the paper.
Danny and Reuben were standing next to him, Basher and the others just behind them.
Linus was standing over with John, Charlie and Stella, after a very short and somewhat surprising greeting at the house the kid hadn't even looked their way, Rusty wouldn't have been surprised if he had forgotten they were there.
As the coffins were placed inside the mausoleum and the door was closed John lay a hand on the kid's shoulder, Linus didn't seem to notice. He had stood completely still the whole time they'd been there, his face was still blank like it had been in Italy, and the dark glasses he was wearing blocked them from seeing his eyes.
Stella was the only one making any noise by crying lightly on Charlie's shoulder, Rusty knew by the way Charlie was rubbing her back that there was something going on between them.
The priest had stopped talking and stood in silence. No body moved until Turk broke the silence by shuffling slightly, that seemed to break the trance and everyone started moving Stella pulled away from Charlie to take Linus's arm and lead him away.
No one said anything in the drive back to the house, but once they got there Linus disappeared, and Stella played host making sure that everyone had a room and knew their way around (or at least just how to get from their room to the dining room, living room and front door).
Half an hour found them all sitting around the living room in silence, Rusty glanced around Linus wasn't even in the room but still no one knew what to say, everyone had a drink in their hand and most people were just staring at their shoes.
They sat there for what felt like hours before a voice broke the silence "So, who feels awkward?"
Rusty looked up to see Linus leading against one side of the doorway, he looked a lot better and appeared to almost be smiling.
"I'm not" Stella informed him from her place on the couch, "I feel right at home." She seemed to find the thought that she could ever not be at home here offensive and Rusty couldn't help but laugh at the exchange.
"So," Turk said happy the silence had been broken, "Where do you keep the T.V"
The rest of the night was spent watching movies and playing poker, Rusty, Danny, Reuben, John and Charlie started up a game and by the third inning John had talked Linus into playing, the kid had never played with them before and Rusty was surprised to find he was good. Though it was hard to tell if the poker face was from practise or just how he had looked for the past few days.
"Did your dad teach you to play?" Reuben asked the kid as Charlie dealt a hand.
"No, LeMarc and grandpa taught me when I was like 5, said something about how awful it would be if I was taught by someone more trust worthy."
"You know LeMarc?" Reuben asked, Linus just nodded not finding it a very big deal.
Linus looked up and paused as he saw the almost surprised look on Reuben's face. "See, this is what you guys forget," Linus told him, "I grew up here, I probably know everyone you know, and I know them better because they've known me since I was in grade school and trust me because of that, I could call up about anyone in the inner circle to ask a favour and they'd do it for me, especially this week." He paused for a second "Hell," he added as an after thought "I know people you think are dead."
No one spoke for a minute, Rusty realised that was probably the most they had ever heard the kid say in one shot, and considering how many people there were in the room it was surprising, no one really knew the 'inner circle' which consisted of LeMarc, Tom Bishop (who hadn't been seen in almost 30 years), and a handful of others. Rusty wondered if Bobby had been expecting the kid to do this, and was training him since birth.
The game only went for another few hands before Charlie announced he was going to bed, the plane would leave early in the morning. When Rusty left Linus was just sitting down to watch the French news, the T.V having been deserted by everyone else hours ago.
Danny had told Saul that when he went to get breakfast he could hear John talking to the kid in the living room, Danny couldn't make out all the words but it sounded like the kid had been up all night, and this wasn't the first time.
Gloria shifted in the chair opposite Saul drawing his attention back to her, "I'm going to go and see him," Saul announced seemingly out of the blue.
Gloria however wasn't at all surprised and only nodded in understanding.
(Now I usually hate it when people writ in script format, but I'm gonna do it right now anyway 'cause I can't make this sound right otherwise.)
"5:00, Steve leaves home to meet myself and rusty for a meeting" Danny began looking around at the other members of the considerably large group who would be pulling the job.
Lyle: "As soon as he leaves, I start hacking in to the system"
Rob: "5:10, me and Turk deliver Yen in T.V box"
Basher: "5:20, I knock out the guards"
Lyle: "5:25, I shut down the system"
Rusty: "5:27, Yen pulls the switch to open the gates"
John: "5:28, Charlie, Frank, Virgil and I enter through the gates go straight down the corridor and I start picking the safe."
Virgil: "5:30, I'm controlling the buggy from inside the truck, I send it down to the safe."
Charlie: "John's picked the safe we load the gold onto the buggy."
Frank: "5:40, we get Yen load the van and leave."
Basher: "Lyle and I meet Livingston and Left-Ear in the other van."
Danny: "We finish our meeting, and we're out"
"Okay," Rusty said stepping forward happy they all had the plan down "We'll meet back here at 3:00 tomorrow, tonight and tomorrow do what ever you want." A small cheer came up from the Malloy's
Danny and Rusty walked over to join John and Charlie, "Are you sure we shouldn't call Linus?" Charlie was asking in a quiet voice. They both looked up as the other two joined them but didn't stop the conversation.
"Lenny knows what we're doing," John told him in a calm voice "he decided not to come." Charlie didn't seem completely convince but didn't disagree. "Want to grab a drink?" John asked Danny conversationally.
"Why not," Turning the four of them headed out the door.
Hey everyone, sorry it's been ages sinceI last updated.
REVIEW!
I do like to know what everyone's thinking.
Also I'm sorry not much really happens in this chapter, but I'm hoping to pick up the pace next chapter.