Fathers
Chapter Three: Reunions


Lawrence Kentuky
27 Years Ago

"But Elie!" Joey whined behind him, her face all scrunched up in that pout that always got her whatever she wanted from him. Which was the reason he was being careful not to look at her. It was bad enough she was using her baby nickname for him near constantly these days. He didn't know what was worse, that one of her picture books had had an elephant named Spencer and she'd started calling him "Elie", short for elephant, because it was easier for the then three-year-old to say or that after two years it was a surefire way to make him smile. Right now he didn't really care.

His step-father hadn't been home for dinner. The last three times he'd missed dinner he'd come home smelling like the bus and yelling at them and scaring Joey. Elie had a plan but Father would be home soon and he didn't have time to entertain a five year old who had big brother manipulation down to a science.

"But nothing Joey." He hissed, sounding harsher then he meant. "I played dolls and tea parties with you all afternoon. We're gonna to try the game I wanna play."

"You're mean Elie." She whined again but didn't move from where he'd told her to stand behind him. "And I hate cowboys and Indians."

Elie looked back at his little sister slowly, forcing a smile despite his pounding heart. "Then it's good we ain't playin' that isn't it? We're playin' West, the whole family's playin' an' the games as long as forever okay? I'm a cowboy an' you're a Indian princess and I'm protectin' you from the whole wild west." The moment he told her she was an Indian princess and he was protecting her he knew he had her. Sometimes knowing your sister paid off. "Mama owns the saloon and Father is the evil sheriff who wants to arrest you so he can make you marry Bobby Filch from down the street and take over your tribe. So whenever we're playing you have to hide from father okay?" She nodded eagerly. "an' he and I are gonna fight over you cause I'm protectin' you an all but you need to stay hiden otherwise he'll getcha okay?"

He turned back to the closet he'd been working on since dinner. A childhood of building forts and finding secret places to play until his mama called him home had paid off. He'd managed to turn the little cranny in the back of the upstairs linen closet into a perfect little hideaway for the tiny scrap of life that was his little sister. After she was in there he'd put the blankets and stuff back and close the door. There was even a plug for the nightlight he'd found.

"Come on your highness." He said pointing. "The games gonna start soon. You need ta get inta hidin'. Father could be home any minute." She dutifully crawled in but made faces when he started putting the blankets back. After seeing them he smiled. "Somthin's missin. Ah, I know." He reached up onto the top shelf he could reach and brought down the Indian baby doll she'd wanted so badly but Father wouldn't let mama buy for her. Elie had stolen it and he'd be in a lot of trouble is father found out but it'd been too hard for too long. His baby sister should get something pretty and nice.

Her eyes went wide when she saw it, reaching out for it with eager hands. "Elie!"

"This is your little sister." He said. "She's also in hidin' but Father doesn't know about her so you can't let him see her cause he'll take her away. She's your little sister so it's your job to protect her okay?"

She looked up, hugging the doll close. "Like you protect me?"

He nodded, giving her the most charming and confident grin an eight and three quarters year old boy could. "Like I protect you." He went back to putting the blankets back. "I'll sit here until Father gets home okay? Wanna practice your letters?"

"Elie" She whined, somewhat deadened by the blankets.

"Joey, your teacher told me you were having trouble with them. What would mama say?"

"Fine." Joey said, he could here the pout in her voice. "But you have to go over your multications then."

"Fine." Eliot said with a long-suffering sigh. "But just remember when I tell you Father's home you have to be quiet and not come out until I come tell you."

"I'll remember." She agreed. "A is for Apple. B is for Baby. C is for cat. D is for Dog. E is for Elephant and my big brother Elie…"

They'd made it through the alphabet and he'd made it through his fives times tables and was working seven times six out on his fingers when Elie heard the front door open. "Father's home." He whispered, climbing onto the space cleared on the shelf above her and closing the door as quietly as possible.

"Danica! Wheres my dinner? Spencer! Get your ass down here boy. Josephine!" Father shouted as he came in. "Spencer!"

For long minutes the house roared and shook as their father whipped himself into a fury. Elie was beginning to think that maybe they'd survived the worst of it when the closet door opened and rough hand grabbed him pulling him out and throwing him hard against the hallway's far wall.

His step father leaned over him, yanking Elie's head back by his hair to force him to look into those brutal blue eyes. He pulled Elie up to whisper not an inch from his face. "Found you."

oOo

Present Day

If nothing else good could be said about the situation Eliot could at least say he'd been prepared. After That Man escaped prison and the two weeks of searching had ended with nothing Eliot had hung around for another two weeks to make sure his sister was safe. He'd spent more than a little of that time making preparations for the worst case scenario and how he'd get back "home" on a moments notice.

He'd also gotten to know his niece and nephew a little better than the handful of visits he'd had before, which was not helping him in his quest to be able to think straight about this. He'd known from the moment his sister had told him her two year old son was named after him, that she'd forgiven him long ago and was waiting for him to forgive himself and come back to her, and that little bright eyed boy had tottered up to him and asked him to play cowboys with him that he would gladly die for his nephew. When his little niece was born a year and a half later he had fought through a civil war to get to an airfield in time to get home to be with his sister when Marie came into the world. They were his family, and in his line of work and now with this thing with Nate probably the closest thing to a legacy he'd leave behind.

But it was knowing that intelligent and friendly boy he'd helped practice for little league, and that little girl who looked so much like her mother and acted so much like how she should have been, happy and carefree… knowing they were with the man who'd turned his childhood into a war he'd never win?

That was what was burning up his mind and making the crystal clear Eliot Spencer focus anything but.

But he'd been prepared. He'd had plans laid and things packed and he didn't even need to think to get everything together and be on a plane to Kentucky within an hour of the phone call.

He spent the air plane ride looking over all the information he'd gathered while hunting That M-, Andrew Lawrence, six months before. He tried desperately to put in a little distance, a little perspective. He'd be no good to anyone if his judgment was clouded or he let fear get in the way. This was just another case, another mark. He'd retrieve the Phillips children and deliver their kidnapper a sound and thorough beating before putting a bullet through his head just to make certain.

Just another job.

He closed his eyes, banishing the ghostly pain of blows, the ring of screams in his ears, the feeling of hands an-

"Sir? Would you like something to drink?" He looked up, startled at the stewardess and shook his head, forcing a grateful smile and turning back to his folder. The lines blurred together with memory and nightmare and he told himself one more time.

Just another job.

oOo

After the recording fell silent no one said anything. No one did anything. No one had any clue how to even begin responding to that. Even Nate, who'd had some idea how bad Eliot's childhood had been couldn't quite wrap his mind around what they'd just heard.

"Do you think…" Hardison started, not even sure how to finish.

"He has a sister he calls Joey." Nate answered. "I know he was abused."

"Now I get why he hated Juan more than Hardison." Sophie put in. "Must have brought back some terrible memories."

There were a few other quiet comments as they all tried to absorb until Parker raised her hand.

"Parker?" Nate asked, giving her his attention or trying to.

"What do we do? We don't just let him go alone right?"

"I know we were doing this to go after and help him" Sophie started. "But… don't you think this is a personal matter? Something he'd want to take care of himself?"

Hardison looked toward Nate, nodding hesitantly. "She has a point. I mean, I was thinking he was gonna have the whole Russian Mob on him the way he was acting. If it's just some sick son of a bitch harassing his sister I don't think he'll have much use for us."

Nate got up and walked away from the table, looking at the picture of the battered youth on the screen. "The way he was acting." Nate said softly. "That's why." He turned back to them. "This isn't the Russian mob, or a Mexican drug cartel. He's faced them both and I've never seen him as scared as he was when he left. Right now Eliot isn't thinking like the best retrieval specialist in the business. He's fifteen years old, brutalized, and living in terror of what his step-father will do next. He's running scared, not thinking clearly, at best he'll end up doing something he'll regret." Nate looked over at Hardison who'd started typing on his computer. "Hardison?"

"Theres a flight that can get us to Indiana County in four hours." Hardison said. "But I've got some friends who might be able to hook us up with a flight sooner."

"How soon?"

Hardison typed for another minute, waited then closed his computer. "How 'bout now?"

oOo

There was a porch swing in back of the house, looking over the big back yard. Whenever Eliot visited he'd sit there with her from time to time, watching the kids play, looking up at the stars after they were in bed. Even though it had only been a handful of visits over the years, keeping her at arm's length to keep her safe, it was where Josephine felt her brother strongest. It was where she went when she felt confused, or tired.

Or needed desperately to feel safe for a moment.

She hadn't told her husband yet, hadn't called the cops. The note had said specifically not to get them involved. It was just a matter for her and Elie, family business. So she'd called him and now she sat on the porch, feeling like the strong wood beneath her and the ghost of her brother's presence was the only thing holding her away from oblivion.

Fear for her children, for herself, for her brother, the ageless, nameless terror that had haunted her sleep before she'd even known what it was that hurt her brother so… she was drowning in it. She needed to move, to stand, to fight. She needed to do something besides sit here and wait for the creak of the back screen door that was the only sound that warned her Eliot was coming out.

"Joey…" He said behind her, pulling her out of her reverie. In a second she was on her feet and safe in his arms, shielded from everything if only for a second. "I gotcha sis. I'm here. Thing'll be okay. Just tell me what happened."

"He's got 'em Elie." She said, feeling what was left of her composure shake and crack. "He's got 'em. What if he… what if he-"

Eliot put a finger to her lips, shushing her like when they were children and she let herself get worked up. "Ain't gonna happen. You said he left a note, sayin' he wanted ta see me, that he'd bring El' and Marie. I'll go to the meet and I'll bring them home safe. I won't let anythin' happen."

She looked up at him, seeing his old bravado he saved for when he was trying to assure her he "wasn't" about to walk into an unusually bad beating. "Eliot…."

"Have a little faith sis. I haven't been fightin' daisies for twenty years. He can try to lay a hand on me. Won't work well for him, an' if he's hurt them I swear ta god he won't be hurtin' anyone else." He pulled away just enough to get a good look at her, nodding in the way he had when they were little and he was reassuring himself she was okay. "Now show me the note."

She reached into her pocket, holding the note out toward him with a hand that shook a little. He took it, wrapping one strong arm around her shoulders as he unfolded it and read it.

It was pretty illegible, rambling about having Josephine and Spencer but how he'd trade them for Spencer-Eliot, instructions to not call the cops or get anyone outside the family involved, demands for Eliot to come, for money.

"He's insane." Josephine said softly once Eliot closed the notes.

"That's why he's so dangerous." Eliot muttered his response. "Two most dangerous kinds of criminals in the business are amateurs and crazies. You can't predict what they'll do next and they'll do what most people are too sane ta try." Something akin to a bitter smile crossed his face for half a second and Joey remembered him saying something like that to her over the summer only he'd been describing one of his "co-workers" . "That Man's both." Eliot finally finished. "Look Joey, you need ta get outta here to somewhere safe. Go to Boston, my team's there. They're good people. Nate'll see you safe until this is sorted out."

She started to protest. She wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't some kid who needed to hide in the closet while he got the stuffing knocked out of him. They were her kids that monster had.

She barely got her mouth open before he put his hand over it. "I can't be worryin' about you and them. If this is gonna end okay I need to know you're safe."

"Elie…" She looked down, bracing herself physically like he'd taught her years ago. Her shoulders squared, her feet planted in a stable stance. "I can't… I won't just go and hide while he hurts you again." He started to speak but she stopped him. "You're scared." She stepped closer and touched his arm, a sad smile spreading across her face when he flinched away.

He looked down and away, taking a step back to create the personal space he'd needed those last few years as children. He opened his mouth a little bit, looking like he had when they were little and like always he closed it without speaking. The nearly pathological need to protect his sister in any way he could engrained in him longer than either could remember causing him to turn away rather than open up.

Shouldering alone the burden they should have always shared.

"Go pack a bag. I'm taking you to the airport in an hour."

She almost argued, but his voice had gone distant, his shoulders set. Like all those times before when things were at their worst they didn't even look at one another, because even that little acknowledgement of what had happened might break Elie. There was no more strength for charade, they soldiered on because it was what they did, because the other only soldiered on because they did.

She watched him walk back into the house, the stranger who showed up when her brother could do no more.

There'd be no arguing with him. She could only wait and watch and hope her brother came back in the end.

oOo

Eliot stood by the window in El's bedroom, fingers on the latch registering the type of lock and how it had been broken so someone might sneak in and snatch the boy from his bed. His mind was fuzzy… no, his mind was clear. It was clearer than it had been since he'd recived that phone call.

It was just that there was a woman in the room next to this one, crying and packing a suit case and although his mind classified her as "little sister" and "family" and "protect at all cost"…

He knew she was his little sister but it was like how you knew things in dreams, or how you knew you were born somewhere or like how the team knew he killed people. It was knowledge that wasn't processed, that held no emotional connection, that just registered but nothing more.

He knew he should be more concerned than he was but all that really registered was that all that noise and confusion had flat lined out into white noise that let him function.

He examined the window and swept through the room. He wasn't a trained investigator or anything but after years of covering his own tracks he'd learned a good deal about how to spot the marks of the passing of others.

But there wasn't much to find, at least not that he didn't already know.

Time passed and he returned to the living room to collect his bag and the weapons within. He was almost through gearing up for a fight, going through the motions as easy as breathing, when the phone rang.

He crossed to it, answering with a gruff "hello", hearing the click as Josephine picked up another line.

"Hello Spencer." Andrew Lawrence said. "I see darling Josephine did as told. If everyone does as told the good boys and girls will be rewarded."
"What do you want?" Eliot asked, voice steady.

"Is that any way to speak to your father? You know good boys and girls treat their daddy with respect."

Mechanically his mouth moved and voice spoke. He knew this path easily. "What do you want daddy? Are Eliot and Marie alright? Can we speak to them?"

"I suppose you have the ability to but I think you were asking was if you had permission."

"May we talk to them daddy?"

"Say please."

"Please."

"You may not, because you gave me sass. You're a bad boy." Eliot closed his eyes, feeling just a hint of dread drop out of the pit of his stomach as the clear focused white noise jarred at that. "What happens to bad boys?"

"They're punished." He answered closing his eyes and just trying to hang on to… anything really.

"But I can't reach you where you are. I can't punish you. I can't save you." He said almost like it actually pained him. "I want to save you Spencer. Don't you want me to save you? Please, tell me you do. If I could just save you maybe I wouldn't have to try again. My little grandbabies are such a handful I don't know if I have the time to save them but it's my duty to try if I can't save you."

"You can still save me." Eliot said, barely above a whisper.

"You make me happy my son. You might yet be a good boy and good boys should be rewarded. Come to the old grain mill on the edge of Marshal's Hall, where your sister picnics with my lovely grandbabies. Come, be a good boy, and do as you're told and I'll see to it you get a treat."

The phone line went dead.

Before he could even put the phone back into it's cradle someone was pounding at the door.

He crossed to it, opening it to see the team standing on the porch.

He looked from face to face before glancing back inside. "Joey's in the upstairs bedroom. I'll be back in a few hours."

He was in his truck and driving off a moment later, hearing Joey's calls after him long after they'd actually faded from hearing.