Notes: Title comes from How to Save a Life by The Fray

Chapter Five
How to Save a Life

"Nathan!" Sterling called out, waving his arm to catch the man's attention through the crowds of the LA airport. The man had just gotten off an overnight flight from Tokyo and for all his detective skills he'd never done well on long flights.

Not to mention he had every reason to be worried.

He watched Nate turn, seeing him, and the color drained from his friend's face. He all but shoved his way through the crowd, meeting Sterling.

"Maggie?" Nate asked, breathlessly. Sterling knew yesterday he'd been on a case in a remote area of Japan and all he'd gotten was word that he needed to come home immediately. Now seeing it was Sterling not Maggie come…

"Maggie's fine," he reassured, seeing relief come and be replaced by fear again just as quickly.

"…Sam?"

Sterling let out a breath, looking around for a bench. He didn't want to have this conversation, but he'd been the one Maggie had called when she'd been forced to rush Sam to the emergency room. He'd been there when the doctors explained.

And Maggie was in no condition to repeat what they'd been told.

He put a hand on Nate's arm, motioning toward the bench. "We need to talk."

It was ironic, really, how they had ended up back here. In this airport. In this area outside the same gate.

"Nathan," he called out, watching the man turn. He looked pale and haggard as if he'd just gotten off another overnight flight instead of the red eye from Boston. Odd.

He had the guards on call and supporting officers from the local precinct nearby ready if Nate were to try to run but he knew he wouldn't need them. Nate turned at the sound of his voice and came toward him, like he wasn't a wanted fugitive in L.A..

"What is it Sterling?" Nate asked, his voice almost casual with just a hint of annoyance, like Sterling had shouted an embarrassing nickname to get his attention.

Sterling opened the folder he was holding, showing pictures of Spencer and Sophie leaving the international terminal, timestamped the night before. "We need to talk."

Nate for his part didn't react outwardly, hell if Sterling hadn't known him like he did he might have thought Nate had been the one to send them to L.A.

But he knew Nate, recognized the faintest hints of surprise.

Sophie and Eliot were together and had gone to L.A. on their own. Tara had arrived a few days ago and now Nate…

Something was going on and Sterling had a feeling he knew what it was.

Nate turned to go and Sterling put a hand on his shoulder, nodding to the officers to close rank. "Come on Nate, it's just a little sit down."

Nate stared at him and he smiled back.

oOo

"What do you want Sterling?" Nate asked once they were sitting in one of the TSA's interview rooms.

Sterling put the folder on the table, a photo of a corpse tagged as Charlie November India, the picture of Spencer and Sophie, the first carrying a duffle bag, the second dragging a suitcase and walking almost protectively close to Spencer, an incident report, and a handful of files he'd gathered for the case he was working.

He pulled out the last one, a picture of Samuel Kent. "Samuel Kent, gun runner, smuggler, also done a bit of human trafficking and source of a designer drug that hit France a few years ago. Started as a military scientist before being dishonorably discharged, left the states after a stay in L.A., returned a little over six months ago."

"You're here for Interpol," Nate stated. "First big case." He gave a almost regretful look. "Six months, you're having a bit of difficulty. That must be really frustrating."

Sterling mentally rolled his eyes. "I know you're here to take him down. I know you know he spent his last trip to L.A. trying to make a supersoldier and that Tara helped bust up his project," Nate looked up a little too fast. "Tara? Went to visit his most recent victim in the morgue. Oh and..." He opened his other file, pulling out a picture and placing it squarely in front of Nate. "I know your boy Eliot Spencer was one of Kent's victims the last time he was here."

Nate looked down at the picture, a teenaged Eliot sitting among a group of kids next to a signpost for the New Sparks Youth Center, Samuel Kent standing behind them.

The shock on Nate's face was real.

He hadn't known.

"What. Do. You. Want." Nate repeated, anger in his voice and really Sterling wasn't surprised.

"I know you're in town to take him down," Sterling sat down across from Nate. "I would like you and your team to help me take him." Nate tensed, probably about to remind him of Kiev when Sterling added. "You can't use Spencer for this game, Kent knows him and knows how to use him against you. He knows Tara. Sophie left you because she was off her game and I don't know what's going on but frankly I doubt she's back on it yet. So that leaves your team with an insane thief, a hacker, and a mastermind who's just found out the mark abused and tortured his lover for years."

Nate tensed.

Oh, he'd thought Sterling didn't know. Adorable.

"Kent isn't some run of the mill corrupt executive, Nate. He's ex-military, paranoid, and very smart. Your crackpot team goes at this half-assed and he'll go back into the woodwork and stay there. He's a ghost, this is the first time we've gotten a lead on him."

Nate stared back at him, unimpressed, uncaring, and not for the first time Sterling wondered why he even bothered anymore.

"Maggie, Maggie, calm down. Sam needs you calm." Like always that worked wonders to get the woman to take a few deep breaths and get a hold of herself. Even if Sterling was pretty sure Sam was still out cold from today's treatment, mothers would react like mothers. "You just focus on your son. I'll find Nate."

And beat his sorry ass for making me get up at three in the morning to go looking for it.

He hit the closest bars first, a lot of them already closed, then spiraled out, looking for one of those damn Irish pubs Nate liked so much.

He found Nate stumbling outside of the fourth one. Picked him up. Took him back home. Didn't murder the man for vomiting in his back seat (which in itself Sterling was sure earned him a bloody medal of honor. These seats were Italian leather) and got him home.

Maggie took over Nate duties and Sterling found himself leaning in the doorway to Sam's bedroom, watching the too small form lying too still in the bed.

He remembered Sam's birthday party eight months ago, he'd stopped by to brief Nate on a case they'd be leaving for in the morning and ended up staying until the end.

He would never admit it but the sight of this boy and his friends running amok in the backyard laughing like the world was nothing but summers and friends and caring mothers and doting fathers… The smile on Nate's face…

It had made Sterling smile, and mentally promise not to harass his friend about being That Father anymore.

Sterling didn't make wishes. He was a practical adult who kept his goals oriented toward things he could succeed on his own one way or another.

But when he turned to go he found something halfway between a prayer and command leaving his lips at a whisper.

"Get better Sam."

Nate's cell rang and Sterling sat back, indicating the man could take it. A show of faith.

Plus they weren't getting anywhere staring at each other.

"Hardison? Not a good time." Nate started. "Wai… Where? Alright. I'm having a chat with Sterling, he's in town. Looks like Eliot and Sophie are together and came here. Get in touch with them."

Nate really hadn't known they were in town. Interesting.

Nate made a few neutral comments as Hardison spoke on the other side of the phone before ending the call.

"Here's my proposal." Sterling said once he had Nate's attention again. "You and I work together to bring down Samuel Kent. With our combined intel it shouldn't be that difficult to pin him down and take him into custody. Provided your team behaves themselves off the job and Kent is still alive to be taken into custody I will overlook any… indiscretions committed by your associates in the process."

"And if I say no?" Nate met his eyes with that look of rage Sterling had seen boiling in there for years before it exploded.

"Then I let you walk out of here, but if we meet again I'll treat you like the criminal you behave. If your crew is there when the hammer falls I won't hesitate to take in anyone I can catch."

He's sitting with Nate at Sam's grave. He doesn't know what to say or even do. The glass of scotch is in his hand, and he feels like he should pass it to Nate but Nate's already more drunk than Sterling thinks is wise for men who know as much and have as many enemies as they do.

But it's been less than a week since Nate buried his son so Sterling is willing to let that go and sit here and make sure Nate doesn't do anything stupid.

For the moment Nate is ranting, only half coherently, about how this was Blackpool's fault and as he rants the rage left to boil all his life, tempered by Maggie, and Sam, and that mysterious woman that put a smile on Nate's face even if Sterling knew it wasn't an affair, and even Eliot Spencer and the games of chess those two played that Nate thought Sterling didn't know about.

That rage was boiling over.

And suddenly Nate is asking him for help. To get revenge on Blackpool. For Sam. For him. Nate knows if he can get in touch with Eliot he could get the Hitter to kill Blackpool but that isn't enough. He wants to make the man who took his son suffer.

Sterling set down the glass and stands, stepping in front of Nate, grabbing the man by his collar.

"Nate, if Blackpool is responsible, I'll help you do this the right way. We'll go through the courts. I can get a list of the judges with children and make sure your case is seen by one. I can help you get the documents you need. Our chances are good. We can make Blackpool pay."

"Not good enough," Nate shouted, shoving him away, falling back onto the bench unsteadily.

"I won't see you become what we hunt. Do you want to become your father?"

"I am not a thief!"

"Then don't behave like one."

Silence from Nate.

"If you want my help taking down Blackpool by the law and courts you'll have it..." He didn't add out loud even if it cost him his job, but it was unspoken in the air. Nate had lost his son, was losing his mind. Sterling could easily find a new job and he owed Nate this much. "But if you become what we've hunted then you and I are through. I won't hesitate to take you down."

"Leave." Nate said, his voice cold as stone and steel but like breaking glass.

Sterling walked away, and behind him he heard the shattering of their glass against a gravestone.

"Why should I believe you?" Nate hissed. "Why should I believe anything you say?"

Sterling took a calming breath, resisting the urge to throttle his former friend. It really wouldn't help the circumstances and Spencer coming after him would throw another unnecessary wrench in the works.

"I know you've cast me as the sheriff of Nottingham in your team's lovely little Robin Hood fantasy but I am not Blackpool, Nate. I am an honorable man. I hunt criminals." He pick up one unopened folder and spread the pictures across the table top. Decade old autopsy photos of over a dozen teenage boys, some barely even into puberty, emaciated, beaten, scared, ligature marks on their wrists, and track marks in the crooks of their arms. "And Samuel Kent is a Sick Bastard who needs to be taken off the streets before he does this again."

Nate looked at him, surprised, maybe it was finally sinking into Nate's thick head that one could be intent on using the courts to stop crime and still actually be against crime.

He let his voice soften just a little. He was trying to reel Nate in and that had always required a delicate touch. "Help me bring Kent to justice and your team walks away, just this once. I'll even throw in losing the files I have on "Echo", if all goes well. Spare your team the trouble of stealing them next week."

"If I didn't know better Sterling I'd say you've found a bit of compassion for a criminal."

"Spencer made his own choices and your team would do well to not think of one of the world's most dangerous men as a victim of circumstance. You don't become who Spencer is without walking that path knowingly and willingly." He hesitated just one moment, seeing the picture of the hitter as a underfed teen out of the corner of his eye, his own memory and mind not letting him keep the adult and the broken teen put through hell as separate as he'd like. "However…" He stopped himself.

He was beginning to think like Nate.

"I'll need time," Nate said. "To get everyone back together and talk over your proposal."

"You've got twelve hours Nate," Sterling answered, the threat clear in his voice as he wrote down the number for an untraceable cellphone on a piece of paper and slid it across the table. "Have an answer for me by then."

He stood and walked for the door, motioning for Ford to be allowed to leave.

Sometimes he wondered why he bothered with this anymore.

But he knew, in a few days, when he could put Kent behind bars and this whole bloody mess behind him and move onto some other thing that didn't involve children and his old partner...

He could get back to enjoying his job and he'd probably remember.