Chapter Five: out here in the dark
"What was it brought you out here in the dark?
Was it your only way of "making your mark"?
Did you get rid of all the voices in your head?
Do you now miss them and the things that they said?"
- "Murder" by David Gilmour

"It's a horrible plan."

"We don't have any more time. They know you're here."

Nate frowned and scratched at his beard. "How do you know that?"

"I received a phone call from Mynas this morning. I managed to throw him off a little, but they know you're back in the States." Sterling jabbed his finger at the building plans they had pinned up on the wall. "If we don't try now, then I might as well hand you over."

"Fine, fine." Nate paced a little and stopped. "So, tomorrow?"

"Yes. I have all the materials we need."

"Okay, then."

Sterling pulled down the plans and rolled them up, storing them in one of his desk drawers. He rubbed his forehead and glanced back at Nate.

"If you had to choose, who is a priority?"

Nate looked up. "What do you mean?"

"If you have to choose between your team members, who is a priority?"

"I don't want to play this game, Sterling." Nate shook his head. "We're getting all of them."

Sterling rolled his eyes. "This isn't a game. We only have a small window of time to operate in, and we don't know where they're being kept in the facility. So, I'll ask you again: if it comes down to choosing, who is a priority?"

Nate turned and gazed out the window; the black had started fading out of his hair, which made him look much worse for wear than normal. Sterling waited, fishing out his gun and checking it to make sure it was armed and functional. He placed it on his desk and pulled out another one he had obtained for Nate.

"Sophie. If we only have one chance, I want to make sure she at least gets out."

Sterling sighed and laid the gun down. "I could have told you that you would pick her. Hopefully, we'll be able to get them all out. Even though we only have the floor plans for the top floor, it doesn't look to be very large."

"Hope not." Nate loosened the collar of his shirt and settled into Sterling's desk chair, spinning from side to side in it. "So, why exactly are you helping me? You've spent the past few years trying to put me and my team in jail."

"I owe you a favor."

"Come on, Sterling, I know you better than that. Now that you have Olivia back, you have a lot more to lose. So, what is it? What are you getting out of this?"

"Do I always have to be working an angle?" When Nate gave him a look, Sterling grinned a little. "Well, you have me there. They took Maggie away, and she's never done anything to deserve that."

"Is that all?' The way Nate was staring at him was a little infuriating, but Sterling pushed the agitation aside.

"Most of it. You could call it the final push for me to be firmly in your team's camp." He traced his fingers along the edge of his desk. "You might be criminals, but you help people after a fashion. And, for all the shit you do, your place is in jail. Not as an experiment for the government. That's something you should be able to choose."

"Those are a lot of words when you could have just said, 'and my heart grew three sizes that day'." Nate smirked and strode over to the small wet bar. "You know? It shouldn't be that hard to admit."

"Do you have to be an asshole about everything?"

"No."

Nate tossed back his drink and placed the glass carefully back onto the bar. Sterling watched him, the way Nate's hand lingered against the bottle, the way he pushed himself off the bar and strode across the room, trying just a little too hard.

"Let's go," Sterling said quietly. "We have a lot to do tomorrow."

Sophie pressed her hands against the wall and wished again that Maggie was there to keep her company. After their last session with Joseph, they had all been forced to separate. It made the days infinitely longer and much more boring.

She could hear the sound of yelling outside in the corridor, but she didn't go to investigate. Parker had probably gotten out of her room again.

There was the distinctive report of a gun shot, and she turned on her heel to face the door, hoping and not hoping that it meant what she thought. She held her breath.

The door burst open, and one of her guards backed inside, his gun pointed in the direction of the hallway. She moved away from him just as he grunted and fell to the ground, holding his hand to his chest. Two more shots sounded, and he slumped over.

She took a tentative step forward, edging around the dead guard, and two more people stepped through the door.

"Sophie?" The question was tentative, the voice rougher than she remembered.

She broke out into a smile and ran towards him. "Nate!"

He dropped the hand holding his gun and caught her against him with his other arm, pressing her so close as she buried her face in his neck, breathing him in, clutching at him with desperate fingers.

"I thought you weren't coming for us," she whispered, pulling back just enough to kiss him.

He grinned. "I was always coming for you. Always."

Sterling stepped up beside them and cleared his throat. "As touching as this reunion is, we need to move on. We have four more people to get, and they all know we're here by now."

Nate nodded his head and stepped away from her. "He's right. The hallway's clear for right now, so we should go." He pulled a gun from the holster on his hip and handed it to her. "Here. Now, do you know where everyone else is?"

Running her fingers over the smooth metal, she smiled and said, "Yes. How long do we have?"

"About fifteen more minutes before the bomb goes off, and I would like to be out of here before that happens," Sterling called back from the doorway. "Which way?"

"Take a left, then a left at the end of the hallway. Go all the way down. That's where they have Parker." She clicked off the safety as Nate moved beside Sterling. "I just hope you know a way out of the building."

"We've got that covered." Nate reached back and squeezed her hand. "Okay, let's go."

The second they tumbled into the safe house Sterling had set up, Hardison turned to face the group.

"We have to cut out our GPS trackers," he announced even as Parker slipped past him and jumped onto the kitchen table.

Maggie frowned. "Trackers? When did those get put in?"

"I don't know if you have one. I would have to ping it. But, the rest of us do. They put them in when they burned off our fingerprints. Had to have some way of tracing us."

Eliot turned to Sterling. "First aid kit?"

"Fully stocked cabinet to your left," Sterling replied as he walked out of the room.

Eliot pulled supplies out of the cabinet, tossing a pair of latex gloves to Hardison while he pulled on his own pair. Eliot unwrapped a few surgical implements and laid them out on a piece of clean white paper. He arranged a roll of gauze, a suture needle, and thread as well and motioned to Hardison.

"You'll have to cut the thing out. I don't know where it is, and I have a feeling you know all the details." He twirled the scalpel and offered it to Hardison.

Hardison shook his head and backed away. "Nuh-uh, man. I don't do that shit."

"I'll talk you through it, make sure you don't cut anything important."

Sophie huffed and sat down in the nearest chair, holding her arm out over the paper Eliot had spread on the table. "You can do me first. It'll matter less if you mess up my arm."

Hardison swallowed hard and pulled on his gloves, taking the scalpel from Eliot's hand. He traced a path down her arm with two fingers; he settled on a spot about halfway down the underside of her forearm and nodded to Eliot. Eliot spread some disinfectant over the area and grasped Sophie's arm on either side to hold her still.

Nate came up behind her, and she shot out her hand to grab onto his, squeezing it as Hardison pressed the scalpel against her skin. She hissed when Hardison cut a steady line on her arm and stuck a finger inside to probe around.

"Can you feel it? Or do you need to cut further?" Eliot asked.

"I don't think it's that deep. It should be…" Hardison screwed up his face and pushed his finger in a little farther. Sophie whimpered, and he smiled. "There it is."

Eliot nodded to the forceps on the table. "Use those. Wait until you get a good grip on the thing, then pull it out slowly."

Hardison let out a long breath and kept his finger in place as he readied the forceps. He took a moment to try to mentally map out where the tracker was and then slipped his finger out of her arm. Sophie was bleeding pretty heavily, but she kept her grip on Nate's hand. Hardison inserted the forceps and clamped them around the tracker.

He waited to be sure he had hold of the tracker; he pulled the forceps back out in a slow, smooth motion, sighing in relief when he looked down and saw the small tracker. Eliot moved into motion and started to stitch up the incision even as Sophie swayed a little on the chair.

Nate placed a hand on her shoulder to steady and her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "You're doing great, Soph. Almost done."

Eliot finished the stitches and wrapped the gauze around her arm, taping it down. He and Hardison stripped off their gloves, and Nate cleared off the table, pulling out more supplies and throwing the used instruments and paper away.

Nate helped Sophie out of the chair, and Parker took her place. He stepped back to watch Hardison and Eliot work methodically; Parker didn't even wince, just watched them with blank eyes. Sophie staggered a little against him, and he wrapped his arms around her waist on instinct.

He couldn't help noticing the differences between before and now. Hardison used to threaten to faint at any sign of blood, and he was now performing a minor surgery without even blinking. Sophie's offhand comment about her arm was bothering him as well.

But, it was the absence of conversation, the way they all looked like they were on the verge of saying something to each other, that really bothered him. It was like they had forgotten how to be around each other, how to interact with anyone else. Sophie wouldn't even meet his eyes, and she stiffened a little when he rubbed her back before relaxing.

He had thought he would be getting his team back. And, he had. But, these weren't the people he used to know, and he had a feeling they were gone forever now.

Parker trailed her fingers along the table and ignored the way the world swam in front of her; the rough texture of her skin caught against the grain of the wood. She winced at the feeling and pulled her hand away, rubbing at the palm.

The chair on the other side scraped against the floor, and she heard someone plunk into it; she looked up, saw that it was Sterling's kid, and went back to pressing her hands together. She could feel the girl staring at her, but she was used to that.

"What's wrong with your hands?"

Parker frowned and narrowed her eyes as she stared at the girl through a curtain of tangled hair. "What's wrong with your face?"

The girl wrinkled her nose. "That's not very nice."

"Neither was your question."

"I was just wondering. They looked like they were hurting you."

"I'm fine," Parker snapped, dropping her hands into her lap. "You should mind your own business."

Parker's irritation didn't faze the girl. "My name's Olivia. You're Parker, right?"

"Yeah. Now go away."

"I don't have to. This is my house."

"So what? That doesn't mean I have to talk to you."

"Parker." It was a quiet reprimand from Sophie who had just wandered into the room, but it caught her attention.

Parker huffed and rolled her eyes. She watched as Olivia stood; Olivia flashed her a small smile and followed after Sophie. When they were gone, she went back to rubbing at her hand.

"We need to head out. When they recover from the explosion and try to trace us, they'll see where our trackers reported this as our last known location."

Nate looked up at Hardison and nodded his head. "Okay. Help me round everyone up. We have two vans in the back."

"I'll get on that." Hardison started to walk off and turned back. "Hey, man, are you sure that Sterling is legit? 'Cause, well, you know."

"He's on our side." Nate patted Hardison on the back. "Now, come on, get a move on."

Hardison smiled weakly and wandered away. Parker had disappeared about an hour ago, and he was a little worried that she might have just taken off on her own. He caught Eliot's eye as he walked through the small living room.

"We leaving?" Eliot called, drawing Sophie's attention.

"Yeah. Nate said to pack it up and head out back."

The two went into motion instantaneously, and Hardison kept walking. He had just left the kitchen where Parker had been earlier. He knew Sterling was with his kid, Olivia, in one of the bedrooms. He paused in the hallway and rocked back on his heels, thinking about any of the places she would go.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he wound his way back through the living room to find the back door and slipped outside. He shivered immediately because it was way too cold for a short-sleeved shirt; he couldn't remember the last time he had been outside in this kind of weather, when the leaves were changing and falling to the ground, the breeze was strong and freezing, and the sun was high and bright in the afternoon sky.

He walked a little ways from the house and leaned his head back, grinning when he spotted Parker perched on the roof.

'Hey, mama, it's time to go!" He waved a little to make sure he caught her attention. "Come on! Get down from there."

She tilted her head to the side and scooted closer to the edge. "Catch me."

That was all the warning she got before she flung herself into the air, her arms spread wide like she was going to take off in flight. He braced his legs in time to slow her fall, but she still took him to the ground; her hair tickled his nose as she laughed and tossed a handful of leaves into his face.

"It's fall!" She beamed and scrambled up to skip around.

He followed after her, trying uselessly to catch hold of her arm. "Slow down, girl, you got leaves all up in your hair."

She whirled and spun into the circle of his arms. He just shook his head and started picking out the dry leaves, cursing a little when some crumbled into tiny pieces that got caught up in her golden strands.

"Playing in leaves like kids," he muttered as she looked up at him. She was closer than he expected, and he swallowed, taking a step back. "But, you know, it's cool. You were cooped up for a long time."

"Is it time to go?"

"Um, yeah. The others are getting some stuff together. Vans are waiting around the corner."

He wasn't prepared for her to grab his hand and drag him in that direction, so he stumbled a bit, almost falling into her. She just tightened her grip and kept going. When they rounded the corner, she stopped short, and he did run into her, his chest lightly bumping against her bony shoulders.

The vans were nothing special, black, nondescript, large enough for all of them to fit comfortably in either one. But, her eyes sparkled anyway as she circled them and ran her fingers over the sides.

She turned back to him and asked, "So, what should we name them?"

He grinned, because that meant things were kind of okay for right now. He could ignore the strange roughness of her skin pressed against his, and he could pretend not to notice the way she hovered just a bit too close. They would get through this, just like everything else.