Note: This is a tag to the Second David Job and takes place during the planning stages after Maggie is brought in.

White Queen
She was Nate's ex-wife. He's sleeping with Nate. She knows.

Maggie had a way of making things between him and Nate awkward.

Of course, all things considered, Nate was Maggie's ex-husband and Eliot was now sleeping and more or less living with Nate so it made a good deal of sense that her being around would make things uncomfortable. Even if Nate and Eliot alone knew the real reason why having Nate, Eliot, and Maggie alone in the same room was a bad idea it didn't make the knowledge in Eliot's head easier.

And it wasn't as if this whole shindig had started out promising. He should have known since the beginning, when he was working a job and acting the part and flirting because that was what he did and Nate had learned to deal so long as Eliot only looked but didn't touch, and he picked up a pretty blonde chick who just so happened to be Nate's ex-wife.

The team thought it threw a monkey wrench into the works of the job? They should of seen the job it pulled on his and Nate's relationship. It hadn't exactly been on the most stable ground already. Eliot's past and alcoholics did not exactly agree with one another in any comfortable terms and Nate was just getting worse.

But god did that leave them screwed up.

And it's not like they had any time to fix things before they had to scatter.

Then again not seeing each other for three fucking *long* months may have helped get over the whole incident. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Not to even mention what it did to your sex drive once you actually saw each other again.

Then they didn't even have time to do Anything about it before it was back to the job and the story and frikken Maggie. Back to make things confusing. So here Eliot was, in some remote corner of Hardison's house with that banged up magnetic chess set he'd carried through the years planning out his strategy for the rest of the game he and Nate had started during a brief lull earlier trying to just think about chess and not Nate.

Which was probably a stupid thing to be doing since Nate had taught him how to play chess and he was just beginning to think that maybe he should give up and go find something to beat the snot out of when he heard the object of his frustration behind him.

"I thought your voice sounded familiar." Maggie said from the door of the room and Eliot turned to look toward her. "You were the man on the phone, the one asking if Nate was alright?"

It took Eliot a moment but he remembered, the one time he'd risked a call to Nate's home in the nine years between when they'd met and Chicago. "I was worried. He was a month late getting back to me." Maggie raised an eyebrow in question and Eliot shrugged, trying to play cool but 'I'm sleeping with your ex-husband' just kept running through his mind. Eliot tapped the board beside him. "We met on a job ten years ago. Nate taught me to play chess. We'd play chess by mail. I was waiting for his next move."

Maggie's eyes lingered on the chess set. "That was you?" She shifted her eyes back to Eliot. "You were the boy in the Cairo prison?" She asked, her voice softening and Eliot flinched a little mentally wondering how much about him and what had happened Nate had told Maggie.

"It was a long time ago." Eliot answered moving a piece absently, not liking the scrutiny.

"You know he thought of you like a son by the end of that." Maggie said, walking into the room and sitting close to Eliot. "Talked about you a lot after getting home. I think he even missed you for awhile."

Eliot grinned sadly, he'd never admit it but he'd missed Nate for awhile too… maybe even missed him like a father, especially considering where fate had taken Eliot next. "Sharing a cell 24-7 can make you used to having someone around I guess." He admitted, hoping this conversation stayed in the relative safety of the somewhat distant past.

"Now you two share a bed." Maggie said so casually Eliot thought he'd misheard at first. His surprise must have shown. "You two do a good job at hiding it but I was married to him Eliot. Though I'm surprised Sophie at the very least hasn't noticed."

Eliot opened and closed his mouth, a couple of times, not entirely sure what sound he was trying to make. Finally he settled on. "It's been only three months." He said looking back to the chess set. "Nothin' happened back in Cairo. It took ten years to get us this far." He was already preparing to deal with a woman scorned, he'd try at least to keep her from thinking Nate had cheated on her with him.

"I know." She said, crossing to sit on the other side of the chess board from him. She was quiet as she looked at the board for a long moment then moved a piece. "He always said you could learn a lot about a person by playing chess with them." Her hand hovered over the pieces that had been removed from the board. "Do you mind?"

It took a second for Eliot to catch her drift but then he nodded, resetting the board for a fresh game. Funny, he wasn't surprised to learn she played chess as well as Nate.

They were seven or eight moves in before either said anything. "Do you love him?" Maggie asked finally, her voice soft.

"Enough that I'm still trying to make this work." He said, before wincing. He was talking about everything, neither of them were the poster boys for mentally stable, but she might take it to mean the alcohol. The alcohol which drove her to divorce him. She didn't say anything and he moved a piece. "I don't mean it like that either." He finished, or tried, his mouth opening again. "neither of us… I ain't much better truth be told. 'cept I've been keepin' my demons at bay for twenty years. Bit better at it is all."

He finally looked up, seeing her staring at him, her face set without expression but her eyes soft. She met his eyes for a second and looked down, making to look for her next move but seeming distracted. "He told me about your step-father, what he did to you. He didn't mean to but sometimes he'd have nightmares, remembering what they did to you in that dungeon and his mind would twist it into other things and he told me in the end. He was afraid of becoming that for…" Her voice faltered before she said Sam..

Eliot didn't really know how to react to that, how to respond to the pity in her voice or how much she knew. He'd moved a long way from there, from that battered teen and broken twenty something. The two years after Cairo he'd spent in Croatia had shown him horrors even his hell of a life hadn't known and he'd come out on the other side hard but strong. He'd faced hell and walked out alive and able to live with the ghosts that followed him out.

And he wasn't even going to touch what that knowledge had done to Nate. It wasn't something for now.

"It's been a long time since then. Things changed. We both changed. He's not the man you married, or the man that saved me in Cairo." He looked down at the chess board, touching his white knight. "But who he is and who he was keep's this team together… 'n me together. And we keep him together."

Maggie moved a piece, he moved a piece, and the game continued in silence for a time. Then Maggie took his knight and held it in her hand. "White knight or black king." She mused. "I heard the old terms. Nate was a white knight, now he's a black king and you're his white knight and I don't have a place on this chessboard anymore do I?"

"Don't know ma'am. You still have your black queen 'n I have my white. Sophie's caused a mess, we'll take her back… she's one of us… but maybe a white queen to balance her black wouldn't be too bad." He didn't know why he was doing this, when had it become his right to offer her a place? When had he decided he wanted to? "We're a bunch of misfit pieces anyway."

She nodded and went to move when Hardison knocked on the door and came in. "Hey you'll, we're gatherin'." They got up and followed him out. Hardison asked. "What were you two talking about anyway?"

They glanced at each other. There was a certain amount of understanding, not friendship, not yet, but something bordering trust or something generally positive at least. Eliot shrugged, Maggie smiled and they answered in unison. "Chess."