Notes: Happy Thanksgiving!
As usual this wonderful betaed fic is brought to you by she who should be praised ASL_Wonderland.
The Legacy Job
Chapter Four
Hardison was aware there were times and places where life strayed into the Twilight Zone, and you were better off running very fast and very far in any other direction than the one in which you had been heading.
Hardison had thought they'd already hit that point when the woman that Eliot was protecting had died. That in of itself was warning enough. He should have run then.
But Nate was in the hospital now, maybe even dying, though Hardison cursed himself for even thinking that thought.
And life had proceeded toward a even bigger Twilight Zone.
He should have run away while he had a chance.
Instead, he was the one to ask Mrs. Ford "Who is that?" while pointing at the blonde boy in the picture with Nate.
"You said your friend's father had a dog named Kate." Mrs. Ford said, ignoring the question, her attention snapping back toward Parker who nodded in reply. Mrs. Ford's eyes dropped back down to the picture she held, shaking her head. "No… not possible. He… he died when he was fifteen."
Hardison's mind spun, informing him just who had eyes that color, who had a grin like that, who had first appeared, as far as Hardison could find, at the age of fifteen.
"Who died?" Sophie asked softly, her voice easing toward 'dealing with a client' gentle. "The boy in that photo?"
Mrs. Ford nodded slowly, shocked and still processing. "His name was Spencer Wheeler." She blinked the moisture from her eyes quickly. "Was… His mama had remarried so he died Spencer Lawrence." She put the picture in her lap. "He was Nate's half brother." There was a silence after that. No one was quite sure what to say to the wife scorned sitting before them.
"Nate never told us he had a brother." Parker commented after a long moment.
"They hadn't seen each other in eight years when Spencer died. Sometimes I don't think Nate even really remembers."
Sophie gently lifted the picture, studying it. "Where is this?"
"Lawrence, Kentucky." Mrs. Ford supplied. "Spencer's stepfather was a member of the family that ran the town. If it weren't for the Martins, he probably would have gotten away with what he did."
"What did he d-" The question Hardison wasn't really sure he wanted answer to had almost left his mouth when recognition struck hard.
Martins.
His mind ran back to a job in Kentucky. To Eliot's high school sweetheart. To the man Eliot had had more personal interest in helping than Hardison had seen before, or since.
Willy Martin.
"Martins?" Hardison asked, voice hollow.
Mrs. Ford nodded, her eyes sad, taking back the picture. "The Lawrence who married Spencer's mother was an abusive bastard; when Spencer was fifteen things got out of hand. Lawrence beat him and his mama to death, left their bodies in the woods. It was William Martin, his wife, and his daughter who led the town in making sure the Lawrence family didn't smooth it over and get him out of trouble."
Hardison's voice sounded hollow in his ears as he asked. "Do you remember the daughter's name?"
Mrs. Ford sighed. "I shouldn't but the poor girl was so angry I remembered it. She" Mrs. Ford tapped her fingers to her lips in thought for a moment before answering. "Aimee. That was it, poor girl. She and Spencer had been sweet-hearts. He even gave her a promise ring."
It was simple. There were too many line ups, too many coincidences to not be. Of all the bizarre…
They really had stumbled into a Twilight Zone.
Sophie rubbed her face. "This isn't possible. The world's best Hitter and an ex insurance agent turned Mastermind who are randomly thrown together, and end up forming a team, just happen to be half brothers? And no one would know it if it weren't for a picture of a dog? That's… that's just not possible."
Hardison was beginning to wonder if someone was running an elaborate con on them. Then again, they were all a mite paranoid.
"Oh come on." Parker said. "Weirder stuff's happened to us." When the Team all gave her disbelieving looks Parker shrugged and explained. "Yeah, the world's best Hitter, the worlds best Thief, and one of the world's best Hackers are all at the exact same place in their lives and need money just enough that they'll accept a job that makes them all break their own personal rules about always working alone. An ex insurance agent who just happened to have chased them all and is kinda liked by all of them in a weird way, just happens to need money enough to take the job. They're all betrayed and a bomb blows up just soon enough, so that they wind up in the hospital - but mostly unhurt and have to work together one more time. That just happens to give the Mastermind enough time to convince them all to work together to get revenge and the money. The Grifter they want, just happens to be all too willing to come back into the game, and things just happen to go SO well, and they all make SO much money they decide to keep going? Yeah, like that's EVER going to happen."
Hardison blinks, considered it for half a moment and then shrugged at Sophie. "Girl has a point."
Mrs. Ford looked between them. "What are you saying?"
Sophie sat down next to Mrs. Ford and laid a gentle hand over hers. "Our friend Eliot Spencer, a member of our team, is about ten years younger than Nate. He's dark blonde with blues eyes, and looks a bit like the boy in the photograph. He has a photo of that dog." She took a breath and finished. "And though he hasn't said much about his past, one of the jobs we worked together was to help a man and his daughter who he'd known in high school. Their names were Willy and Aimee Martin. We can't be sure, but I think he may be Spencer Lawrence. We think Eliot is Nate's half-brother."
oOo
Escaping the ward after retrieving Adrian was almost shamefully easy. Though, in retrospect, Eliot had to admit that after one has escaped a couple Russian dungeons, anything without AK-47 totting armed guards and some well trained attack dogs started to seem almost too easy.
They slipped out the back, Adrian following behind him like a shadow. After reaching the van, Eliot opened the front passenger door for her before climbing in on the other side. He habitually checked to see if she'd put on her seat belt (El and Parker both seemed to have issues with doing that) before driving off.
As retrievals went Eliot had to admit he wouldn't mind it if a few more were this easy.
The drive was silent. Adrian was staring out the window at the world flying past, a sort of blank expression on her face every time Eliot glanced over to check. After he was sure they weren't being followed Eliot got a chance to consider the situation. Adrian was supposedly low risk, the suicide attempt had been courtesy of the Zo-Tien and she should be fine now. Though they had been forcing her to take it while in confinement, which was troubling, it had taken her two months to get suicidal wile on the drug. She hadn't even been in the ward for much more than a month.
He glanced toward Adrian again. She was still staring into space, hugging herself tightly. Dressed in the white pants and tee-shirt of the ward, she was shivering a little and it occurred to Eliot she might be cold. It was late fall after all. He turned up the heat before forcing his eyes back onto the road.
He was keeping their client alive. Something he'd failed rather spectacularly to do earlier. He wasn't caring, he'd been reminded of his mistake about that earlier.
Okay, if he was honest with himself he felt a little guilty about Selina. He was used to seeing people die. Hell, he was used to doing the killing, but Selina was a civilian and a mother and it was the first time they'd lost a client like this.
Maybe guilt over getting her mother killed was mixing with his tendency to be a tad on the protective side with kids and maybe Joey had something to do with all this.
Eliot needed to get Adrian to a safe house and get on with the job. He needed to back away from the situation and sort himself out and get his focus back. He needed to focus, otherwise Nate and Selina probably wouldn't be the only ones to end up in the hospital.
Or the morgue.
He let out a long calming breath, driving in silence, trying to slip into the right headspace. It was hard, with a team that was sneaking closer and closer to being family every day. But when they were on a job he tried to slip back into the proper mind-set. He had to be on guard, he had to watch for danger and be ready to ma-
"What's your name?" Adrian's question broke through Eliot's reverie. He glanced over at her briefly before turning his eyes back to the road.
"What's your name?" She asked again.
"Eliot Spencer." He said simply. "I work with a team that's working to expose Zocrolft. Selina found us and told us about you." He explained further, predicting the next set of questions. "I'm taking you to a safe house."
"Is Selina going to be there?" She asked, her carefully blank expression giving way to a bright smile. Eliot could hear the hope on her voice and winced internally.
He could lie to her. He could tell her that Selina was at another safe house. He could tell her a lot of things to make this a simple transition for a while longer and then get Sophie to break the bad news. She was good at that. She knew how to do that.
But this wasn't just a case of "Get the money for Adrian and walk off into the Sunset". Adrian's foster mother was dead, and there was no telling who in the foster system was involved, and after everything was over, chances were they wouldn't be able to just drop Adrian off at the doors to Child Protective Services. When this was over they'd have to figure out what to do with her.
They'd find her a good home. If the team as a whole didn't Eliot was pretty sure he could convince Parker and Hardison to help him find her a good home. They owed it to her for getting Selina killed.
But if anything they did for her was going to work they needed her to trust them enough to let them do it.
And if Eliot lied to her about Selina now Adrian would probably never really trust them again after she found out.
Eliot checked the rearview mirror one more time and pulled over, stopping the car at the side of the road and taking a deep breath. Sophie would know how to do this right. But he wasn't Sophie and really…
He turned to Adrian who looked like she'd already guessed that something wasn't right and made up his mind. Sophie would be able to do it right, he'd just do it and hope for the best.
"Selina is dead." He said, as gently as he could. "We were ambushed when we were moving her to a safe house. She was shot, I couldn't save her. I'm sorry."
"Dead?" Adrian asked, her voice sounding hollow and brittle. "She's… dead?" She took a sharp breath and Eliot braced himself for a freak out. For Adrian to flip and break down and rage, or whatever a fifteen year old who just lost her mother normally would do.
He wasn't prepared for her to crumple around herself, pull her knees up to her chest and turn to look out the window.
"Adrian?" He asked, softly, not sure what the question was.
She didn't say anything for a long moment before she let out a shaky breath. "I'm okay. Sometimes things just go wrong. Take me to the safe house so you can get back to your team and take down Zocrolft. I'll take care of myself." He hesitated and she turned to him, blue eyes wild with something that he almost recognized, her voice a strangely familiar in it's deadpan when she said. "Sometimes things go wrong. All you can do is accept it and move on. I'll be okay."
With a hesitant nod Eliot started to drive again.
oOo
There is only so much time you can spend in the Twilight Zone before life drags you back out. Hardison was grateful of this fact. It meant that after twenty minutes of confirming that a DNA test would be about the only way to disprove the most recent bizarre development, things started getting a little closer to what passed as normal for them.
Sophie left the room to find some Doctor to con into giving her an update on Nate. Mrs. Ford pulled her knitting out of her bag and proceeded to try to teach Parker the skill. Hardison was tempted to warm Mrs. Ford about the dangers of Parker and sharp objects but Parker seemed to be too confused to make any efforts to stab someone.
Then again, maybe she was just confused enough to stab someone.
Hardison had gone back to trying to sort out the mess from earlier that day. How had the hit men found Selina? The safe house should have been safe.
An hour had quietly ticked away before Hardison finished putting the pieces together and made sure that his theory was what had actually happened. He did not want another error like this driving this job, or any other, further south.
Giving a nod to Sophie who'd returned and was keeping a wary eye on both Parker and the door, Hardison stepped out. He found a stairwell where he could have a bit of privacy and called Eliot. "Eliot, what's going on?"
"I"ve got Adrian." Eliot answered. "I'm almost to the safe house. You figure out what happened yet?"
Hardison paused in trepidation. He had figured out what had gone wrong. Adrian's laptop, the one the goons took of Selina's body, was one of a used set donated to CPS by a business. Like all the others in the set, it had a program installed that sent out a GPS indicator whenever it was in range of a wireless signal. It had been installed as theft prevention by a paranoid company, but if the wrong people got their hands on the code…
If the laptop had been turned off, things would have been alright. The program didn't work while the computer was shut down, and once inside the safe house, Hardison's programs and blocks would have prevented any signal from being sent out.
But the computer had been on when they moved Selina. Hardison suspected Eliot had seen the black screen, felt that the computer was cold, and assumed it was turned off rather than in standby. Eliot knew enough about technology to get by. He knew to turn off cell phones and anything that transmitted a signal before going to ground. He was learning but…
Technology was still Eliot's kryptonite.
Though if Hardison was honest with himself, he'd admit he only guessed at the scenario of what happened as easily as he did because he'd done it often enough himself. It was a dumb mistake, but were there any other kind?
"There was a tracking program on Adrian's computer, led them right to her." Hardison said, all of this passing through his head in a second as he considered his words. "It normally wouldn't have worked, but they probably crossed the HD power supply with an H2 converter to make sure the motherboard had the necessary power to make sure." His words were mostly made up of techno babble, but they had the desired effect. Eliot didn't ask any more questions and Hardison didn't have to tell him Eliot-Kryptonite and a dumb mistake had gotten Selina killed.
Later, Hardison would figure out some way to make sure Eliot knew to always check and make sure a computer was powered all the way down, but this was something they were going to blame on the unavoidable, on getting blindsided. Hardison still felt a little sick that Selina was dead, and sicker that they could have stopped it if only…
But Selina was already dead and as much as Hardison wanted to freak out about the actual, non-video-game death, he knew there wasn't much they could do about Selina now. They needed to focus on Adrian and the ten different ways life had gone crazy in the past twenty-four hours.
And Eliot didn't need to have a dead client on his conscience. Hardison knew he had killed for a living but he also knew Eliot didn't take death lightly. And a death like Selina's?
What Eliot didn't know wouldn't distract him.
"Hardison!" Eliot growled after a moment more of technobabble. "Is it safe or not?"
"It's safe, man." Hardison said quickly. "Safe and sound."
"Alright. I'll get Adrian settled and head back to the hospital." There was a moment's pause before the gruff voice continued. "How are things? Any news?"
Hardison thought of the revelation of the dog, of Sophie harassing and grifting anyone she could to try to get news, of the growing monstrosity that was Parker's attempt to knit.
Of still not a word on Nate.
"Nothing." Hardison said a moment before adding. "Hurry back."'
oOo
It was almost two hours later before Eliot was parking in the hospital lot, half wondering why it was so empty before he realized it had to be close to midnight, if not later. It had taken time to get into the safe house, show Adrian around and make sure she knew how to get into the underground panic room, and how to seal it properly. He'd also had to go through a conversation he absently wondered would have been any less awkward if it was the girls he was explaining it to.
Which is to say, he showed Adrian the closet he'd stocked with clothes and necessities for Sophie and Parker. This safehouse was his, but he'd gone the extra few steps to make sure that should things go south for the team, they could all retreat there and lay low, not needing to leave for a week or more if they had to. There hadn't been anything there to actually fit Adrian, but once he'd told her none of it had actually been worn, she assured him she could make due.
With a final explanation of the kitchen, and once more emphasizing on her not leaving for anything, he told her someone would check in on her the next morning and he left. He took the long drive back to the hospital as a chance to clear his head and try to get back to focusing on the case.
The immediate emergencies had been resolved. Nate was still in critical condition and their mark probably knew Nate and Eliot's faces by now, which meant the con would be a bit more limited.
But they could still do this.
Even if Eliot would never admit it, he found himself walking into the waiting room the others were camped out in much sooner than he might have liked.
He hadn't been ready for a woman he guessed to be Nate's mother to look over at him and go pale like she'd seen a ghost.
And he really hadn't expected the next words to leave her mouth be "Spencer Wheeler?" He looked at her, confusion crossing his face as he tried to come up with some way she would know the name he'd been born under. Spencer Wheeler had been dead even longer than Spencer Lawrence had. "Is your name Spencer Wheeler?"
Parker, Sophie, and Hardison were all staring at him with penetrating eyes and Eliot knew no matter what he said they'd find some way to figure out the truth.
"Not for twenty-eight years." Eliot said. "How'd you know that ma'am?"
Mrs. Ford didn't answer right away. She stood up and walked over to him, holding out an old faded photograph. Eliot took it and looked at it.
His six year old self hugging Kate, a teenage boy sat on the dog's other side. He blinked, hazy memories from a childhood before life went to hell, stirring. There were vague remembrances of his father and another; a teenage boy, the one in the picture. Even as the memory rose, rage and betrayal came back with it, buried deep and put away years ago.
He looked back down at the picture. The teenage boy he remembered was the boy in the photo. Eliot hadn't seen a picture of him since his mama married.
The teenager in the photo looked familiar. He actually looked a lot like Na-
Eliot looked up at Mrs. Ford.
Oh.
"Of all the Crews, of all the countries of all the world, you just happen to work for him, right?" Hardison commented off to the side and Eliot wasn't sure whether to hit him or thank him. Somehow Hardison being a smart mouth made this all seem less like they'd all gone crazy.
Eliot looked back to Mrs. Ford. Nate's mother and the wife of the man Eliot's mother had had an affair with. "You're alive." she said, looking like she didn't know if she wanted to hit him or hug him.
Eliot wasn't sure what was going on, and he wasn't sure how the fuck he should react to finding out his boss was his older half brother, or that his half brother's mother was apparently happy he wasn't dead. He didn't know when life had gotten this much out of control. He was relatively certain that he really needed things to stop getting more out of control, so he could figure out some kind of next response other than to stare at her with a look somewhere between confused and shocked on his face. He preferred to save that expression for anytime he saw Sophie "act".
That was the moment the door opened and a doctor walked in. "Are you all with Nathan Ford?" He asked. They turned, Mrs. Ford and Sophie nodding quickly. "We've managed to remove the bullet and repair the damage. He's stable and we're moving him to the ICU for recovery at the moment, the nurses out at the desk will tell you where exactly. He likely won't awake for some time, but you can see him now."
He was barely done speaking before the team had gathered their things and left the waiting room.
Twenty minutes later they found themselves sitting in different uncomfortable hospital chairs in Nate's room, the steady beep of his heart monitor comforting.
It only took a few minutes for Parker to start looking antsy. A few minutes later Sophie stood and stretched, quietly suggesting that she, Parker, and Hardison go see if the Cafeteria was still open or find some vending machines if it wasn't.
It wasn't the most subtle Sophie had ever been, but Eliot appreciated the break from the awkward quiet and the stares as everyone tried to think of something to say without success.
Even if it meant he'd have to talk to Nate's mother about the fact he wasn't dead, and that Mr. Ford had killed himself in part because he thought Eliot was.
"What happened to you?" Mrs. Ford asked a few minutes after the others left, breaking the silence but never looking away from Nate.
Eliot thought back, it was twenty years gone and those early memories had never really lost their pain. He'd buried them and learned to live with them and separated them from the Joey he knew now but, he owed her… "I was fifteen." Eliot answered her with a shrug. "I'd tried, but I knew I wasn't gonna make another three years, and his family ran the town." Eliot made a bit of a face. "Truth is, it's the kind of case our team would take." The irony brought a bitter smile to his face. "I got social services ta take my sister, but it wouldn't be more than a few days before she got brought home again, so I provoked That Man. I had a plan, Willy was gonna help me end things, but things got outta control and after my sister got taken and didn't even acknowledge our mama before she left… well, when things turned bad my mama stepped in. By the time things were over, my mama was dead an' I wasn't far off myself. Willy hid me in his stables while I healed up, and Aimee bought me a bus ticket out of town. I left and started over." Eliot shook his head, looking around the room and mentally adding if losing yourself in the streets of L.A. and getting pulled into the Criminal World could be called starting over.
There was silence for a long time before Eliot put to voice the question that had haunted him for years after his first trip back to Lawrence to see Aimee. It had come with the news that his father had killed himself. "Why'd he do it?"
"A big brother has only one job." Mrs. Ford said softly, shaking her head. "Protect his younger siblings." She finally turned to look at Eliot. "Your father told you that didn't he?" Eliot nodded. It was really what he remembered best of his father. The words he'd tell Eliot every time he came for a visit. It was his job to protect Joey. He was her big brother and his one and only job was to protect her. It had been all Eliot had cared about for most of their childhood. "You know where that came from?" Eliot shook his head. "Nate's…" She paused and amended herself. "Your grandfather was an alcoholic. Like your father. Like Nate. Only, your grandfather was a mean drunk. He was dead by the time I married your father, but Jimmy had the scars to show for it. He also had a little brother who didn't. Jimmy protected your uncle. Kept him safe all the years they were growing up." She finally looked away from Nate and looked over to meet Eliot's eyes. "When he found out what Lawrence had done, that he'd left you to go through what he'd been through… It was the last push I guess."
Eliot looked back to Nate, not sure what to say next. It was weird, how in the space of an hour all this had come out and come back, how he was sure the team now knew a whole lot more about his past then he'd ever really be comfortable with, how much shit was going down…
And he didn't really feel anything but tired. His shoulder hurt where he'd been grazed, his knees ached where he'd hit them as he dived out of the way and to cover Nate, his head hurt for any number of reasons. He felt a vague sense of really not wanting to deal with this on top of everything else.
But mostly he felt tired.
"You know…" The halting, hesitant, words made Eliot look up again to see that Mrs. Ford was still looking at him. "I… Nate told me he was worried about you. That first year after Jimmy stopped taking Nate down to see you. He told me there was something wrong. That you told him you didn't like your new father. That he thought there might be something bad happening to you." She looked back to Nate. "I was the one who told him not to worry, that most kids just don't like new step parents. I was glad things were finally back to normal and Jimmy wasn't taking Nate to spend time with you anymore."
She didn't say she was sorry, which was just as well, because Eliot didn't even know how he'd respond to that. For better or worse, that was buried twenty years in the past and covered by scar tissue and the pain had stopped as long as the wounds were left alone. Time had moved on, and Eliot had tried to follow suit. All that was in those years had been filed away with the rest of the things in his life that he was better off doing his best not to remember.
They didn't say anything else and soon the others returned, passing out cups of bad hospital coffee and settling into chairs. Hardison went back to typing on his computer. Sophie joined Mrs. Ford in attempting to figure out what Parker had done to turn the ball of yarn she was knitting into the tangle mass it now was.
Eliot spent a few moments watching with a sense of horror as Parker attempted to knit and he discovered that Sophie not only knew how, but found the activity relaxing. He had just given up and was considering finding some other activity, or maybe doing a security sweep or something, when Sophie asked Parker what she'd been trying to make in the first place.
"Booties." Parker replied. "For Eliot's kids."
Eliot looked up, blinking at the mass. "What?"
"On TV they always show people knitting baby booties for babies. I was trying to make some for your kids."
"I…" Eliot started, trying to find some words but managing mostly with. "There's something wrong with you."
"That's not very nice." Mrs. Ford reprimanded, though Eliot could have almost sworn there was that look in her eye like Nate got when he was adding his dry commentary to the banter to keep it going.
Parker beamed and shook her head. "No it is nice, Mrs. Nate's Mom. 'there's something wrong with you' is Eliot for "I love you."
It was in that moment that Eliot was reminded why you shouldn't attempt to drink anything while Parker was speaking. He sputtered bad hospital coffee over himself as he tried to respond. "There is really something wrong with you."
"See!" Parker said.
Anything anyone else might have said was interrupted by a soft groan coming from the hospital bed.