A/N: *NOW EDITED TO INCLUDE PART I and II* Thank you to everyone who's favorited or followed and much love to LeeMarieJack, Alice of Scots, floralisette, mysticaljayne, Murakami no Kitsune, Kyla (Why thank you very much, I'm glad you liked the update!), BranchSuper, SPN Mum, and ShadowHatcher for reviewing!
It was Hardison. Hardison was sitting right there, so close that Nate could have reached over and flicked his forehead. He didn't, of course. That would be highly unprofessional behavior for a twice-suspended lawyer from Reno with an inexplicably Bostonian accent.
Sophie sharply nudged his ribs with her elbow. "Nate," she muttered through the uneasy smile plastered across her features. "You're staring."
"Ah." So he was. He cleared his throat, buying for time. "CIA? Hmm. Well, Agent—"
"Call me Alec," Hardison—er, Alec interrupted. "Everyone does."
Nate couldn't help raising an eyebrow. "Alright, H—Alec. What exactly—"
Alec cut in again. "Does the CIA want with Ms. Devereaux? Other than her witty charm and good-looks?" the hacker-turned-honest government employee gave them a toothy grin. Then immediately sobered. "Well, since your client just signed a confession to forty-three crimes—and that's just in the US of A— we got all we need."
"You signed what?" Nate turned to Sophie, who shrugged; she looked as bewildered as he was.
"He was just so smiley," she supplied anxiously. "It was getting under my skin."
"Getting under your—Let me see that confession," Nate demanded, making "gimme" gestures. Alec wordlessly took out the paper Nate had seen him tuck away, and smoothed out the creases before handing it to the other man. Nate snatched it from him, and squinted at the tiny print, skimming over the text. His lips moved as he silently read.
He stopped, licked his lips nervously, glanced at Alec's smiling face, then returned his gaze to the paper. "But this doesn't mention the terms of Ms. Devereaux's incarceration," he said.
"Like I said," Alec replied vaguely. "We got all we need."
"So I'm free?" Sophie asked. "That's it?" Nate continued to read. Then he saw it. A laugh—three parts bitter, one part hysterical—escaped him.
"Oh, no," he said between gasps. "No, that's not it. They've sold you out to Interpol, Sophie."
"Technically, she's not even an American citizen," Alec shrugged. "It's all politics, not really my thing. Sorry, folks, don't shoot the messenger."
Sophie's hand closed around Nate's arm in a death grip. "Jimmy, get me out of this. Interpol's got a secret prison; I don't want to go to a secret prison!" Sophie, bless her thieving heart, somehow managed to stick to their story, even under threat of being shipped off to who-knows where for who-knows how long.
"You're not going to secret prison," Nate reassured her. He stared down Hardison-who-wasn't. "Right? Har—mm, Alec?"
The agent scrunched up his nose and pursed his lips in a caricature of genuine thought. "Well… It's not really my call, but yeah, probably." He shrugged and checked his watch.
Nate's lips thinned. Not only was this guy threatening Sophie, but on top of that he was impatient about it? It was hard to believe Hardison could turn out like this.
"Sorry," he said dryly, "I hope we're not wasting your precious time. I'm sure you have very important paper pushing to finish."
Alec looked up quickly. "As a matter of fact, I was just wondering when the helicopter was going to get here. They said a half-past, but—" he was interrupted by the sound of a song Nate vaguely remembered being popular in the nineties. He reached into his pocket and muted his phone. "Oh, there it is." Alec pinched the confession between his thumb and forefinger and slid it out of Nate's grasp.
"Helicopter?" Sophie asked incredulously. Alec shrugged again, fumbling with his laptop case as he got out of his chair.
"Perks, am I right?" He snapped his fingers. "Which reminds me…" the agent knocked on the door, tapping his foot impatiently. When the guard finally opened it, Alec whispered something to him. Nate listened closely, but only caught the dismissive ending, "so hop to it, Skippy."
Alec self-consciously cleared his throat and sat down, as if trying to pretend the exchange never happened. Nate looked at him expectantly. The ex-hacker (or, more accurately, the newly government-funded hacker), instead of explaining his shifty behavior, whistled tunelessly and drummed his fingers on the table.
His head shot up when he heard the door burst open but he slumped and rolled his eyes when he saw it was just a disheveled Sterling stumbling in, looking like he'd gotten dressed blindfolded (or drunk, as was more likely).
"God, not again," Nate groaned. It seemed to be Sterling's unique gift to show up exactly where he wasn't wanted at exactly the wrong time. Sterling tilted his head to the side.
"Nate, what in God's name are you wearing?"
Alec looked between Nate, whose face stayed buried in his palm; Sophie, who refused to look anywhere but the ceiling; and Sterling, who was having trouble staying vertical. "Do you two know each other, or…" he drifted off, waiting for someone to jump in and set things straight.
Little did he know, his present company wasn't big on "communicating" or "divulging information necessary to draw conclusions in the same universe as the truth."
"Sterling," Nate lifted his head just enough to give the other man a poisonous look, "shouldn't you be passed out drunk somewhere?"
"No thanks to you," Sterling snorted. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to get me out of the picture."
"I'm not even gonna touch that," Alec muttered, tapping his foot impatiently.
Sophie shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "Interpol's putting me in their secret prison, and my last moments of freedom are spent in the company of the biggest morons on Earth."
Sterling considered it, then leaned in conspiratorially (if a tad tipsily). "Well, I mean technically you're in jail already so your last moments of freedom were spent with a lying, backstabbing, no-good, dirty-rotten—"
"Thank you, Jim, we get the point," Nate said through clenched teeth.
"—Bastard!" finished the inebriated insurance investigator. "Inna terr'ble suit."
Alec raised his eyebrows and blinked like he'd reached his threshold for crazy. "Aaaand that's my cue." Several guards walked in. "Oh good, the brute squad made it just on time. Finally." They rounded the table and had Sophie stand. She glared at Nate.
"Jimmy…" she warned as they ushered her toward the door. There was a promise in that one word, one that involved a personal vendetta and possibly arson if this wasn't resolved.
"Hey, ah, Alec," Nate lurched onto his feet. "Hold up a second, you can't just take her. I mean, this confession wouldn't hold up in court, she didn't have a lawyer present and it can't be legal."
Alec shrugged helplessly. "I'd help if I could, but it's not my call, man. Like I said, I'm just the middle man here."
"That's not good enough," Nate hissed. Alec's expression turned cold.
"Maybe you should have thought about that, Mr. Ford, before you had her arrested."
Nate paled. He could only watch powerlessly as Sophie was taken out of the room. Alec mock saluted and winked on his way out.
"Pleasure meeting y'all," he said. "Keep doing you." And then he was gone.
Nate and Sterling looked at the open door, then back at each other.
"We need to stop them," Nate asserted at the same time as the other man groaned, "I may throw up on you." Nate grabbed Sterling by the elbow and dragged him after the CIA agent and the grifter.
As it happened, strange lawyers in pastel suits and drunken insurance detectives did not have clearance for roof access and they were forcibly removed from the facility.
Nate squinted into the sun, trying to get a glimpse of the helicopter Alec Hardison had mentioned. So far, nothing. He hoped he hadn't missed them. Sterling swayed next to him.
"I'm…" he paused, brow creased in thought, "very not sober."
"Yeah, ah, I got that."
"I just had a couple drinks," Sterling continued.
Nate nodded distractedly and kept his eyes on the roof. "I was there."
"Not all night," Sterling slurred. "Or this morning. They took the David, see. My David. Do you have any idea how long it took me to find where she hid it? Any?"
Before Nate could reply, a choppy humming sound caught his attention. Slowly, a black helicopter rose from the roof and hovered far above their heads. He clenched his fists and stared, because that was all he could do. The chopper's pilot seemed grow bored with taunting him and started heading south.
The next moments happened as if filmed in slow-motion.
One second he was watching the helicopter fly off into the blue sky, and the next he was watching the blades falter like a skipping heart. He held his breath as it veered sharply to the left; his nails dug into his palms. He didn't know when he started running but somehow his feet were moving him closer and closer to the helicopter.
Or was the helicopter getting closer to him?
It was a nightmare—no, this whole world was a nightmare—and the helicopter was falling. With Sophie inside. Nate felt himself trembling. First Eliot, then Maggie, now Sophie. Even in a perfect world, where Sam was alive and healthy and happy, he'd still managed to mess it all up.
He heard Sterling shout at him to stop, to turn back, but his eyes were fixed on the heavy machine as it struggled to keep airborne. Sterling jerked him back just before the helicopter hit the parking lot, smashed and folded like an aluminum can under foot against the asphalt in a heap of twisted metal.
Car alarms sounded and a delayed explosion burst the wreck into flames. And Nate stared. It could be real, a wicked voice taunted. What if he got it wrong?
Nate sat down at the kitchen table and glanced at the clock. He figured Sam would be home soon and wondered if he should make dinner or an after-school snack. He hadn't realized how rusty his parenting instincts were, and they weren't quick to come back. The seconds ticked by, and still he hadn't moved.
Through the window facing the street, he saw the school bus pull up to the side of the road and let his son off. It was still surreal, especially after spending his day with familiar faces, to see Sam running up to the porch with his backpack and lunchbox.
"Mom?" Sam called as he opened the front door. Nate smiled slightly and pushed back his chair to stand.
"Not quite."
"Dad," Sam corrected as he came into the kitchen. He set a brown package on the table and sat down.
"What's in the box?" Nate gestured to the package.
Sam shrugged. "It was on the porch. It has your name on it, I guess."
Nate took a closer look at it. Plain brown box, no return address. Highly suspicious. But it wasn't like he had anything to lose. "Well, let's open it then."
After struggling with the packaging tape for a good five minutes, he finally dug through the packaging peanuts and grasped onto something cool and metallic. Sam wrinkled his nose in confusion as the bronze statue of a naked man came into view.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The Second David," Nate replied, noticing a slip of paper tied to the David's legs.
Nate,
Consider us even.
-S
Nate sat back in his chair and smiled.
~~~~~~ LEVERAGE-style flashback complete with music ~~~~~~~~~~~`
"You're not supposed to be here."
Nate swiveled the chair around to face the opening of the cubicle. He raised an eyebrow.
Alec Hardison stood in his cheap, rumbled suit with his shoulders hunched and his laptop bag strapped across his chest. "You messed with the wrong CIA agent, baby." Not a very convincing picture.
Nate sighed. Of all the careers in all the world, his hacker had to be seduced into a government job – one with a cubicle, no less. He snorted. "Come on, Hardison, can you really call yourself an agent? I mean look at you." Tough love, he reminded himself as the younger man's face fell.
Alec shrugged. "Fine, but you're still not supposed to be here." He tugged off his tie and tossed it onto his barren desk. "And you're sitting in my chair."
"I'm here to offer you a job."
"I have a job." Now that was just sad.
Nate tried a different tactic. "How'd they rope you in, Hardison? Did they catch you and promise not put you in prison? Did you come willingly?"
"None of your bee's wax, old man."
Nate chuckled at that. "Glad to see you're not entirely a mindless paper-pusher."
Alec smiled and leaned against the far cubicle wall. "I give me another five years."
"If that."
"So a job, huh?" the ex-hacker shook his head. "I don't do that anymore. I've gone honest, I swear."
"Then how come security's not on their way to drag me out?"
Alec shrugged. "I get bored, I figured you might be interesting. Boy, was I wrong." Dirty liar, he'd called security the moment he'd seen a strange man in his cubicle.
"So are you in?"
"I told you, I don't—"
Nate leaned forward, eyes meeting the other man's. "Hardison, how'd you like to break the law?"
Without hesitation: "God, yes."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~END LEVERAGE-style flashback~~~~~~~~~
"Who's it from?" Sam peered over his shoulder to look at the note. Nate crumpled it up and stuffed it his pocket.
"Oh, no one," he said, "just a joke between coworkers."
A/N: So not all sad! Annnnd CIA Hardison turned out pretty good. I had originally written this a little more bitter sweet, but this was happier. Also I just really like the music from Leverage and this was the best I could do without, I don't know, downloading it directly into your brain. (I'm pretty sure that's not even possible). Sue me, I'm a fan.