A/N: Apparently I am very blameworthy. Sigh. Am sulking. And am inclined to say that this chapter is dedicated to InSilva for always being a wonderful, concerned, tolerant and understanding friend. So there.
A/N 2: As you probably guessed from the last A/N, I have nothing to say about this actual chapter.
He woke to an empty bed and it felt strangely wrong. Blearily he rolled over. No sign of Rusty and he knew that he'd spent the rest of the night held safe in Rusty's arms. Probably it was a good thing that Rusty was gone now though; in the cold light of day he'd probably, almost certainly, have to feel at least a little bit embarrassed at the cuddling. Maybe.
But Rusty wasn't there and he woke up a little more and, dealing with the sudden feeling of irrational worry, looked around for clues, sleepily. When he saw the smear of blood on the edge of the sheets, he was out of bed instantly, staring wildly round the room, and he saw the bathroom door was ajar and the light was on, and he was pushing the door open before he even thought of knocking.
Rusty was standing in front of the sink, a bloodstained bandage at his feet. He didn't look round at the sound of the door; all his attention apparently focused on scratching at his skin furiously.
Danny looked at it, wincing to himself. The bullet wound was bad enough, still livid and ragged and purpling, slathered with a fresh layer of glue, but it looked like Rusty was in the middle of attempting to remove all the skin from his hip up to his ribs. His fingernails were digging deep, leaving everything red and furious and painful.
With a hushed moan of empathy, unthinking he seized Rusty's wrist, holding it firmly away from himself. "Don't," he said softly.
There was a pause and Rusty sighed. "It itches, Danny," he complained helplessly, and he could somehow hear the pain and misery beneath.
"Let me see," he demanded in a voice that would recognise no argument as he moved to Rusty's shoulder. Rusty didn't look round, but he let him approach, see, touch, all without objection. For once. Rusty was not, apparently, especially good at accepting help. He wondered if it was always like this.
"You had to glue it again?" he asked unhappily, his thumb smoothing over healing and glue.
Rusty nodded and stared at the sink. "Had to," he explained. "Scratched it open in the night. It itches."
He grimaced. "You really need a doctor, Rusty," he pleaded.
"Nah," Rusty said reassuringly and he heard the grin even if it wasn't actually pointed in his direction. "Honestly, Danny, it's not all that. I've had worse."
The image of the knife and the man and Rusty's eyes saying goodbye rose up in his mind and he wasn't quite quick enough to suppress the soft noise of pain.
Instantly Rusty span round and stared searchingly over him. "What?" he demanded.
His breath caught in his throat and he was staring too, and his hand reached up and hovered over the dark bruise on Rusty's cheek.
He'd forgotten. He'd forgotten the moment of panic and bewilderment and forgetting, had forgotten feeling threatened and punching out, and he hadn't meant to, and Rusty hadn't said anything.... "I did that," he said, desperate apology and numb regret in his voice.
Rusty's face fell in self recrimination and guilt. "You didn't mean to. You didn't know what you were doing."
He thought about Rusty keeping his face turned away and sighed. "How long did you think you could keep that up?"
Rusty shrugged. "Until it healed?" he said lightly. "Might not have thought it through."
"I really didn't mean to," he said quietly, and he knew Rusty knew, hell, Rusty had just got through saying the exact same thing. He still had to make it clear. "I didn't even remember that I had. I didn't even recognise you."
Nodding, Rusty didn't look like any of this was news to him. "It's okay, Danny. Really it is. Stop feeling guilty."
He stared. "Like it's that easy."
Rusty grinned and reached for the bandage on the floor. "What were you thinking just there? Before you saw?" Even though Rusty's voice was casual, even though Rusty wasn't looking at him, he knew that the question was serious.
He hesitated and wondered what the best answer was. In the end, he decided on the truth. "After you woke me, after I punched you I had a kind of flash of...memory, I guess. Or it was a hallucination." He bit his lip. "I kind of hope it was a hallucination."
"What was it?" Rusty asked quietly, turning back to look at him.
"You and me...we were underground. There were people holding on to me and you were lying on the ground and there was a man holding a knife and he'd been..." He swallowed hard. "You looked like you were saying goodbye."
Rusty nodded slowly. "It happened," he said simply. "Last year. A favour for a friend and things got complicated. Bad. We got out in the end, obviously. Luck, mostly."
He frowned. "And this is how we cho...and this is how I choose to live my life?" There was bewilderment in his voice, and he didn't like seeing Rusty hurting, hell, he didn't like hurting himself, and he wasn't sure what made it worthwhile.
A pause and Rusty smiled lightly. "How's your head this morning?" he asked.
"Okay," he said honestly. A little sore still, but nothing to write home about.
"And your chest?" Rusty persisted.
Ow. "Fine, as long as I don't think about it," he said with the slightest of glares.
"Sorry," Rusty grimaced. He grinned suddenly and shook his head. "Good thing about being in disguise right now? With any luck Phil and Eleanor won't notice that we're not exactly at our best."
He frowned. Because he didn't want anyone to know about his amnesia, didn't want to reveal that vulnerability, not while everyone was a stranger, but still he had to wonder. "But they're friends, right? I mean there wouldn't be any trouble if they found out?"
"Nah, they're our friends alright," Rusty assured him quickly. "Good friends. Matter of fact we introduced them, so I guess they owe us."
"We introduced them?" he blinked.
"Uh huh." Rusty nodded and he headed out into the bedroom and dressed quickly, talking all the while. "Fourteen months back. They've been married...eleven months. Yeah. Eleven. We didn't make it to the wedding; we were in the middle of something complicated, but we sent a present. A set of monogrammed towels. And a BMW, in case they didn't laugh."
He grinned. "Was that monogrammed?"
"Might have had personalised plates," Rusty admitted. "Hey, I wanted to get as much mileage out of Eleanor's new initials as possible."
"Understandable," he nodded sympathetically. He frowned thoughtfully. "Three months before they got married, huh? Whirlwind romance."
"Love at first sight," Rusty explained. "You'd have to see it to believe it. It was very...."
"Romantic?" he suggested, and Rusty shook his head.
"Annoying," he corrected decidedly.
Danny grinned. "You have no soul," he complained.
"You try getting the details of the sixteenth century armoire you're being commissioned to...obtain - "
" - steal - " he said, and Rusty shrugged.
" - when the woman who's supposed to be telling you can't take her eyes off your team mate," Rusty went on. "Still," he added seriously. "I managed to add another couple of zeros to the price while she was distracted."
He blinked and looked at Rusty's face carefully and uncertainty faded in a heartbeat. "You did not," he said firmly.
Rusty laughed. "No, I didn't," he agreed lightly. "Though I swear I was tempted to after we spent the next three weeks trying to get Phil to blow stuff up while he wondered if Eleanor had noticed him, and asked us if we'd noticed that her hair is the exact colour of paprika - "
He choked. " - Paprika?"
Rusty waved a hand. "Closer analysis, he meant cinnamon. Anyway, it was all very annoying."
"And in the end they got together?" he asked.
"Straight after the job," Rusty confirmed. "Might have been helped by the fact that we took a few days at the end to go help Phil pick her out a present." He smiled fondly. "Some women like flowers, some women like jewellery, some women like love poems. And some women like a guy who'll blow a hole beneath the antiquities section of the art museum and steal her an eighteenth century lute."
He laughed, but on some level he was wondering at the look on Rusty's face. "So what now?" he asked.
Rusty shrugged. "Got a couple of phone calls to make before we head out. But first - "
" - breakfast," he nodded understandingly, and Rusty smiled at him.
Two hours drive and by the time they pulled up outside the large house in the middle of nowhere his head was starting to hurt again. Too much movement, probably. Or too little air. Or too much effort trying to remember every place and time he'd ever met Phil and Eleanor Turrentine. Something.
They'd hired a car and he had a feeling that Rusty was deferring to his sensibilities. Problem was, he'd been assuming that they'd steal one, and he didn't know quite when he'd got to thinking like that.
Rusty turned the engine off and looked at him for a moment before passing the painkillers over. "Take one."
He did and watched the way Rusty was sitting stiffly and he could see, somehow, the effort Rusty was putting in to not scratching, and he gave the pills back with a significant look. "Why don't you?" he suggested. It had taken him until halfway through breakfast to realise that he'd been led firmly away from all thoughts of guilt and all thoughts of doctors. And Rusty had refused point blank to restart the discussion. Stubborn didn't begin to cover it.
"I'm good," Rusty told him. "Doesn't hurt. Just itches like crazy."
He nodded and accepted and reached into the back seat for the box containing the pot. A minute later they were ringing the doorbell, and moments after that a tall man with a deep tan and a long, bleached-blond ponytail was ushering them through to the sitting room. Phil Turrentine, he assumed, going by logic and Rusty's descriptions. Maybe about thirty. Looked like he belonged on a beach, waxing a surfboard.
"Guys! Haven't seen you in an age," Phil beamed. "Not since that thing in Connecticut, you remember.
Rusty had told him. A round table con and a collection of sapphire jewellery. He grinned. "Fun times."
"We figured we'd better stay away until the bite marks had faded," Rusty added, and he and Phil both laughed.
"Eleanor will be down in a minute," Phil told them. "She's just finishing up a phone call. In the meantime why don't you show me the plans and we'll figure out what you need?"
He watched silently as Rusty got the plans to the bank out and started explaining the situation to Phil, omitting to mention Mackenzie or Dawson, or being shot and shot at, or being hit on the head and tortured. By the end of it Phil was frowning. And he didn't get the impression it was anything to do with the bank.
"All sounds straightforward enough," Phil assured them absently. "Should be able to put something together for you no problem." He stared from one to the other of them. "Look. I know it's...are you guys arguing?" He sounded incredulous.
With an effort he managed to keep his face blank. Obviously Phil had figured that something was wrong. Something must be different and he had no idea what. "No," he said, sounding puzzled, and he resisted the urge to look at Rusty.
"Of course not," Rusty added and there was – hopefully – disarming amusement in his voice. "When do we ever?"
"Well, never," Phil agreed unhappily and Danny managed to keep his surprise fairly well hidden. Never? "Right," Phil went on, still sounding unconvinced. "I'd better go and see what's keeping Eleanor."
As soon as Phil left the room he leaned in close to Rusty. "What - "
Rusty shook his head quickly and an instant after he heard the voices outside the door. Uneasy, murmured conversation. Rusty grimaced. "Just act like nothing could possibly be wrong," he hissed.
He nodded and worried and a moment later the door opened and Phil walked into the room followed by the most glamorous woman he could remember seeing. And yes, he was prepared to concede that her hair was indeed cinnamon coloured. She was also about a decade older than he'd unconsciously been expecting. In her late thirties at least. Huh. Rusty hadn't mentioned that Phil was by way of being a toy boy.
"Danny," she smiled and shook his hand warmly. "It's lovely to see you again. Even with such an awful haircut."
"Hello Eleanor," he smiled and went for charmingly friendly.
Phil looked startled. "Oh, yeah, you're in disguise. I hadn't noticed."
"Which is why you're not a surveillance guy," Rusty told him.
Eleanor turned quickly to Rusty and with a startling, sudden movement, threw her arms around him and hugged him close. Danny couldn't help but blink, a little shocked, and he noticed Phil looking suspicious – not at Rusty and Eleanor as he might expect, but at him. Quickly he concentrated on looking calm and unruffleable and Eleanor stepped back from Rusty and smiled happily. "Rusty. Oh, it's been too long. And have you been keeping out of trouble?" Her eyes were fixed on the bruise on Rusty's face.
Rusty grinned. "Of course. What do you take us for?"
"Oh, I know exactly what you are," Eleanor said dryly. "I've known you far too long to expect even the slightest hint of common sense."
Rusty looked injured. "Eleanor, we are the - " He hesitated fractionally, as if he was automatically expecting something that wasn't forthcoming. " - the very model of uncommon sense," he finished brightly.
Eleanor nodded slowly and looked from one to the other of them sharply. Then she dropped down onto the armchair behind her and sat straight, her hands folded in her lap. Behind her, Phil leaned casually against the door. "Now, boys," Eleanor began crisply. "Why don't the two of you sit down and explain exactly what's really going on?"
There was a pause. "Mrs Turrentine, you're trying to intimidate us, aren't you?" Rusty asked cheerfully, and Danny bit his lip.
Eleanor sighed and relaxed slightly. "Dustin Hoffman isn't getting you out of trouble this time, Rusty," she said firmly. "What's going on?"
He waited, tense, and when Rusty looked at him, he nodded. Not like they had many other options at this point.
"Danny had...an accident," Rusty said carefully. "He can't remember anything."
There was a moment of stunned silence and Phil and Eleanor stared at them blankly. "Anything?" Eleanor asked finally.
He nodded tightly. "Woke up knowing nothing. Not even my name."
Phil was grinning in a way that hovered between unease and bewilderment. "So you don't remember us? I mean, you don't know who we are?"
"Right," he agreed.
The grin turned to a frown. "But you remember Rusty, right?"
He didn't say anything. Rusty shook his head briefly.
There was another long moment of silence. Then a lot of questions.
By mutual consent, they pulled into a roadside diner on the way back. It had been an exceptionally long few hours and he knew beyond all doubt that Rusty was just as worn out as he was. His head was hurting and he kept needing to glare at Rusty in order to keep him from scratching, and they were both tired. Coffee, and lots of it, would help with the drive back. Burgers and fries would just generally help.
Eleanor and Phil had been concerned. Exceedingly concerned. Exhaustingly concerned. And neither of them had looked at him in quite the same way after. Like neither of them had any real idea how to react, how to talk to him. He supposed the whole situation was weird, but it didn't make him feel better. And he could see how it was angering Rusty and he had to surreptitiously glare for a long moment until he could be confident that Rusty wasn't going to say anything.
But there had been a lot of unhappy questions and it had taken a lot of fast talking – on Rusty's part – to assure them that, yes, it wasn't permanent, and yes, they knew what they were doing, and of course Danny had seen a doctor, and really everything was under control.
He'd just sat still and nodded wherever it seemed appropriate and listened to Rusty talk Phil and Eleanor out of coming back with them and bringing the discussion back round to business. Eventually Phil had got them the explosives that he and Rusty had agreed they needed, and then Eleanor and Rusty had negotiated a price for the pot while Phil wandered through a barrel-load of reminsces, apparently certain that just one more story would somehow trigger Danny's memory. It was very wearing and somehow upsetting, and he found himself longing for the calm understanding that was Rusty. Better when it was just the two of them.
Eleanor had hugged Rusty again before they left. Tight and affectionate and it wasn't simply a gesture between friends. There was something more there. He glanced across the table and watched Rusty trail a handful of fries through ketchup and wondered. "So you and Eleanor..." he began.
Rusty looked over at him quickly and there was the first hints of an unhappy frown there.
He lowered his eyes. "Sorry. Not my business."
A second later and Rusty reached across the table and put his hand on Danny's. "There isn't anything in my life that isn't your business, Danny." He sighed and drew his hand back. "Just that it's strange sometimes. The things you don't know. Me and Eleanor we...well, we used to..." He stopped.
"Date," Danny nodded understandingly. It made sense. Eleanor was very beautiful and Rusty was...well, Rusty was.
There was shocked silence and Rusty stared at him unblinking. "Date?! Me and Eleanor?" His voice was loud and disbelieving. Then he frowned. "Huh. Well. I suppose. You could look at it that way, I guess. Sort of." He shook his head slowly. "Still. Me and Eleanor?"
He bit his lip. "So what is the story?" He wanted to know. Because he didn't remember, and he wanted to. He wanted to know everything.
Rusty stared down at the cup of coffee in his hand. "I met Eleanor when I was seven," he said finally.
"She used to babysit you?" he guessed.
A little more attention was paid to the coffee. "See, the thing you have to understand is there are rules to what we do. I mean, there are things we'd never do, not in a million years. Things that no one we'd associate with would ever do. Things that set up anyone who does do them as targets to be taken down as hard as possible."
He watched Rusty uneasily, convinced that this was going to be bad.
Rusty sighed. "I was working with the Fowler gang at the time," Rusty went on distantly.
And that was wrong. That was very wrong. "Wait," he interrupted. "You said you were seven?"
"Yeah," Rusty nodded, still not looking at him. "'Working with' is probably the wrong way to put it. I was just one of their tools. They were a housebreaking outfit. Sometimes it's hard to get a greaseman." He looked up sharply and Danny nodded his understanding of the term and silently begged Rusty to keep eye contact. Rusty smiled very briefly but still looked down again. "Anyway, sometimes people – people who don't follow the rules – use kids instead. Force little kids to squeeze through small windows and wait in tiny spaces and open doors for them."
"That's what they made you do?" he asked horrified.
Rusty nodded and grabbed blindly for a handful of fries. "Fowler was sorta like Sikes, you know?" he said lightly, as if it was nothing.
Inside Danny was screaming at the idea and some part of him was thinking about the coercion that would be used to force a child – to force Rusty – and another part was thinking about how anyone using a child like that would want him to stay as small and skinny as possible. He stared at the food in Rusty's hand and he pushed his own plate a little nearer, just in case Rusty got hungry and wanted the rest of his fries too. He swallowed. "Think I never did like Dickens," he said, as casually as he could manage.
"I was thinking of the movie," Rusty answered, looking up with a smile that was nowhere near his eyes.
"With the singing?" he blinked.
Rusty looked confused. "Nah, the cartoon."
Danny thought about that for a moment. "So you're comparing yourself to a fluffy, orange kitten?"
He got a decided glare but Rusty's lips were twitching and this time the amusement had reached his eyes. "I was just one of the ways that Fowler was breaking the rules. Got so that not many people would work with him. Matter of fact, people were working to try and take him down. Which was where Eleanor's father came in."
Rusty had come to a halt and Danny nodded encouragingly, and he wanted to reach across and take Rusty's hand again, but he was very conscious of the guy behind the counter who'd been looking curious since they came in. Rusty sighed. "Eleanor's father was a fence. Not like Eleanor, more general. As happy to deal in stolen TVs as antiques. Her mom was an archaeologist; think that's where Eleanor got the urge to specialise. Anyway, Eleanor's father – George – was part of the plan to take Fowler's gang down. Started by earning his trust. Had the whole gang in his warehouse twice a week for two months, selling whatever we'd stolen and then they'd all play poker and get drunk for the rest of the night." Rusty's eyes were far away. "Eleanor was home from college at the time, learning the business. While the rest were drinking next door, she'd take me downstairs, give me a hot meal, and we'd play hide and seek or watch TV." He smiled slightly. "She taught me to read, Danny. I owe her a lot."
He looked across the table, met Rusty's eyes, and he wondered if last time, when he'd heard this story before, if he'd known what to say. Wondered if he'd known how to give voice to the feelings of sympathy and misery and anger and helpless protectiveness that surged through him.
Rusty smiled gently. "I know, Danny," he said.
He nodded. "What happened with Fowler?" he asked quietly.
Rusty shrugged. "We all got caught with a lot of stolen goods. They all went to the pen, after a lot of discussion with the police, the courts and social services, I was sent to an orphanage. Years later, when I was back in the world, Eleanor's father was one of the people I went to look up. By that time, Eleanor had taken over the business. She remembered me. Introduced me around. Found me some people who'd teach me what I wanted to know."
"Good," he said and meant it. Still, he couldn't see where the sort-of-dating had come in.
Rusty smiled. "Little after that," he explained.
He frowned and realised that he'd stopped being bothered by Rusty's mind reading thing sometime ago. Which was just as well, since Rusty's efforts to stop had been completely unsuccessful. "What happened."
There was a grimace. "Starts with a girl. Charlene. About six months before we met. She was beautiful. Amazing. I really liked her and I thought she really liked me but she kept saying her parents would never approve. Her family had money, or at least more than I did. We dated for a while, if you could call it that. She hated my neighbourhood, and she wouldn't hear of us going anywhere we might bump into someone she knew. So we went to places she thought were tough and down at heel. Guess I was her teenage rebellion."
Danny could see in Rusty's eyes the shadow of a teenage boy who'd been made to feel not good enough and he hated it. He hadn't known Rusty long but that didn't stop him from understanding exactly what amazing meant. And from everything he'd learnt – from Stan, from Phil and Eleanor, from Rusty himself – Rusty was the most important person in his life, and he didn't like to think that anyone could ever see Rusty as being any less than he was.
Rusty smiled at him, acknowledging the feelings. "I was stupid. Got caught up in this Romeo and Juliet delusion. Went to see her father, convinced that if I just talked to him he'd be able to see my sincerity and give us his blessing. Charlene knew nothing about it, of course."
"I imagine that went well," he commented, wincing.
"Her boyfriend was especially impressed," Rusty nodded.
He frowned, a gathering storm. "She - "
" - ohhh, yeah," Rusty agreed with a painful grin. "They'd been seeing each other for over a year. He was round for Sunday dinner. Looked at me like I was a cockroach from the wrong side of the tracks. And Charlene, the look on her face when I walked in..." He trailed off, shaking his head, and it was old pain and humiliation. "Her dad was actually pretty reasonable about it. Convinced that his little girl couldn't have done anything wrong, of course. But he took me into his study and gave me a long talk. Condescending as hell, thought I was some kind of pathetic, mentally-deficient love-sick fool, worshipping his daughter from afar. He gave me the bus fare home and made it clear that if he saw me again he'd call the police. And that was that. I crawled home and didn't go outside for a couple of weeks. Too embarrassed to show my face."
He bit his lip and found himself wishing that he'd been there. Wishing that he'd been able to comfort Rusty, to take care of him.
Rusty looked at him thoughtfully and smiled. "Eventually Eleanor came along and dragged me out of myself – I'd missed a couple of valuation lessons she was meant to be giving me. She listened to the whole, sorry story and then stood over me until I showered and dressed and hauled me out to buy me ice cream and asked me what I wanted to do about it." He grinned, genuine wonder and affection visible. "Next three weeks she took me out every night. Expensive restaurants, exclusive clubs, VIP events – all sorts of places that I'd never have even thought of trying to get into before. And at the end she took me to some banker's ball that we knew Charlene's family were going to be at. Made damn sure that she was the most beautiful woman in the room and made damn sure I looked good in a tux. We danced together all night and didn't look at Charlene once. And that's about as close to dating as we ever got, and really dating was the last thing it was about. She taught me how to blend in. Real Professor Higgins."
He grinned slightly. "Which makes you - "
" - Eliza," Rusty agreed, rolling his eyes. "Thank you." He grew serious. "She's been a good friend to me over the years. And as long as I don't remind her that she's known me since I was seven and I'm all grown-up now, she'll carry on being a good friend to us."
Danny watched him for a long moment and thought about absolute trust and honesty. Rusty hadn't needed to tell him the story. But he had. Because Danny had asked. There was so much that didn't make sense still, so many ways in which he still had no clue who he was or what he wanted, so many things that he still found wrong and troubling. But this trust, this loyalty, this unconditional everything that Rusty offered so freely – he wanted to be worthy of that. He wanted to spend the rest of his life being worthy of that, trying his best to return that.
He reached out and held Rusty's hand tightly across the table, completely unconcerned by any attention they might attract, only aware of the silent promise he was making.
Believe that there are about, oh, three more chapters of this story?
