Notes: Tag to The Zanzibar Marketplace Job.
So this is it. After this is the start of the long promised Two Knight's Closing.

The Way of Our World
Their world has changed

They don't play chess as much as they used to. Life, jobs, the team… it just gets in the way.

But they try to sit down for a game at least once or twice a week.

Chess has always been the language they speak to each other that has the fewest misunderstandings.

So it's not unusual for Wednesday night to find them sitting on either side of the chessboard, Nate playing black as usual, the quiet settling around them much easier than the week was settling in their minds.

Or the past few weeks.

Or months.

It had only been an hour since the team dispersed and Maggie left for her hotel. Eliot had been all for just going to bed but Nate had wanted to play chess.

Eliot figured it was Nate's way of checking up on him to make sure that after everything that had happened Eliot was okay.

The concern was nice but Eliot had an agenda of his own and no part of it involved making it easy for Nate. Eliot wasn't angry at Nate persay but if he was honest with himself he had to admit there was a lot of scattered bits of resentment that had been building up for the past few weeks.

"You called her your wife again." Eliot said, finally breaking the silence and making his first move.

"That's not what's bothering you." Nate answered making his own opening move.

"You should still stop doin' that." Eliot shot back moving his knight.

"Two knight opener I see. Old favorite." Nate countered. They seemed to be moving into a game of speed chess. By now they were so familiar with each other's strategies the games went by much quicker, victory depending as much on their ability to think like someone else as it did on predicting the other's next move. "And you should really stop flirting with anything that moves."

"I haven't broken any rules." Eliot said, countering Nate's play for his knight by pushing a pawn.

"Yeah, but I still can't figure out why you've been making such a point about it. Is it Tara?"

"She knows man, she's known since the first job. We aint exactly subtle anymore." He shook his head frustrated. "Protect your knight."

Nate paused, distracted by the impending threat to his piece and wondering when this conversation had taken this turn. Hesitantly he moved a bishop into play, seeing moves tick off down the line, direction of the game changing. Eliot's momentum was about to be broken.

Eliot paused a moment, contemplating his next move on the board and off. He nodded to himself and sent his queen swooping across board to take a pawn.

"I'm going to need a couple weeks off." Eliot said, almost as out of the blue as the queen had come from. "The seventh to the nineteenth, might be able to work it a few days on either side but no later than the tenth and no earlier than the eighteenth."

The game slowed, Nate was still trying to figure out Eliot's motivation both on and off the board. "You know I don't let you guys take outside jobs that interfear with our work. I can't exactly give you special treatment."

"It's not a side job." Eliot said after a pause, fingers tapping the table on his side of the board, Nate just starting to notice the tension humming around his body. "Every year no matter what I'm doin' I take a week or two off this time of year. I need it ta keep my head on straight. Call it sick leave."

Nate hesitated but couldn't exactly argue. For all the times Eliot fought through injuries to keep the job going if he needed time off to get himself squared away… Maybe the time was for getting a full medical work up? He practically had a frequent flyer account with the local hospital's MRI. Or maybe it was just time to let himself process and work through everything he'd been through in the previous year to better be able to face the next.

A darker feeling nudged at the back of his mind but he put it aside for later. He had a hint of a suspicion but would need to check to be certain and really he probably shouldn't. If it was what he had a faint idea it might be it was none of his business if Eliot needed to be alone for a while.

Nate stayed quiet, looking at the chess board, and wondering why he was having such a hard time figuring out Eliot's strategy tonight.

He picked up his glass and winced internally when he realized between the wrap up for when they saved the bar and the mess with Maggie and Sterling they'd just gotten through… He hadn't played chess with Eliot in a little over a week and a half.

Not since he'd started drinking again.

And wasn't there a rule about this? He wasn't supposed to play chess with Eliot unless he was sober or felt like getting his ass handed to him.

It occurred to him maybe that was what was bothering Eliot, maybe even why he'd been flirting so much lately.

The memory of the flirting brought Nate back to the reason he'd wanted this game and conversation. Carefully he moved a piece to protect his knight and said. "I figured I should ask how you are."

Eliot watched the move, listened to the words, and cursed inwardly. His momentum was, for the moment, broken. "How I am?"

"You did well with Sterling." Nate said, a hint of something in his tone that something in Eliot's chest responded to with a matching hint of warmth.

"Well, you asked me not ta do anything violent." Eliot said with a smirk but the joking didn't really hide the undertone, the remembrance of an unspoken promise.

"No hint of the black knight?" Nate asked and Eliot nodded. He'd been pissed but he'd managed to keep a clear head. "And when we were kidnapped?"

Eliot paused a moment longer before answering slower. "I had a job to do. As long as I did, s'long as I could focus on keepin' my head in the game I was okay."

Nate smiled and moved his bishop, taking a knight. "Sometimes we do win."

Eliot matched Nate's smile with a grin watching his plans unfold on the bored, his queen coming out of nowhere to take the bishop. "But aren't we the wolves?"

"The good one's remember?" Nate reminded Eliot absently, looking back over the board and conversation before sliding his queen across and landing the king in check. "All five of us."

Eliot looked up from the board, surprised.

He'd been checked in more ways than one.

"What?"

"You know all five of us are wolves. Not just you." A beat, a moment of indecision and Eliot saw the moment Nate decided on a course of action. "…Our world has changed you know."

Eliot watched him, trying to understand and feeling like he didn't want to.

Nate tapped his fingers on the chess board. "Do you remember the conversation we had when the team first came to LA?"

"Yeah." Eliot said, not for the first time thinking maybe he should just drop the act entirely with them and let everyone know chances are if he was there he remembers the details perfectly. "We played chess and talked about the way of the world."

"And we talked about how you wouldn't protect the team."

Eliot let out a little huff. "Alright, things have changed a bit."

"You protect us now." Nate told him strangely soft.

"It's my job." Eliot finally found a piece and moved it.

"And it's our job to protect you." Nate countered the move in just a moment, pressing the advantage.

Eliot didn't know what to say to that.

"And help you." Nate faltered for just a moment before adding. "Will you let us do that job?"

"What?"

"The time you're taking off… is it when…"

Eliot felt his stomach jerk and turn, a hint of anger and a bite of hurt springing up from the place that mess was long buried.

From the look on Nate's face Eliot's reaction was all the answer he needed.

"Can we…" Nate faltered and shook his head. "Can I… will you let me be here for you?"

Eliot looked down to the board. "It was valentine's day Nate." He could almost see Nate's reaction even if he was pointedly looing away. "The first time was the night of Valentine's Day. There was a party next door and I could hear the music through the window. I spend it out of the country in whatever backwater hellhole I can find where no one celebrates it and there are people who'd better serve the world dead. I'm not that nice ta be around around then Nate."

He made a move and looked up.

Nate caught Eliot's eyes and held them. For a moment he could see the ghost of a young boy he had thought they'd finally laid to rest after Kentucky and again not too long ago when Eliot seemed to be getting better.

Eliot functioned best under pressure and these past few weeks had been nothing but pressure. One thing had gone wrong after another and Eliot was a professional. When the job or life itself went south he pulled himself together and kept his head down and did his job as best he could.

But this moment right here, when that haunted look he'd had in his eyes before he left for Kentucky reflected back at Nate every horror Eliot had been through and was always, *always* keeping inside and fighting alone…

"Please. Eliot. Let us do our jobs."

Eliot's hand moved but instead of moving a piece he knocked over his king. "I can't." He said simply. "It's my job to protect this team, even from me." He got up and went for the door. "That's the way our world works."