You know this sinking feeling in your stomach when you turn on your computer and instead of the booting up you expect you just get some weird noises you never heard before. Of course, it always happened on a Saturday evening, when everything is closed. Well, that happened to me. And after several days at the computer repair shop, I got it back and an hour later, it turned off and the same thing happened again.
In the end, it turned out to be a faulty power unit. It occasionally fed too much power into the hardware, shorting it out.
Still, enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters that appeared in the show.
"Is that all?" Alfred asked, wincing as he got up.
"Yes." Sie nodded.
"You can't tell us where exactly it is?" Penny wanted to know.
"I did tell you about the hood they put over my head, didn't I?" Sie rolled her eyes. "But I know the distance we drove and the location."
"How?" Penny was incredulous.
"Sie has perfect sense of location." Alfred told her. "Like her father before her. You could cover his eyes, swing him around a dozen times and then drive him somewhere and he would know exactly how many miles we drove and into which direction."
"A human GPS they call me." Sie chuckled. "Can I go now?"
"Not yet." Alfred shook his head. "What were you supposed to do after capturing me?"
"Call Patrick and tell him I did." Sie told him.
"And what would happen if you don't call?" Penny asked.
"He would probably assume that I failed." Sie shrugged.
"But the VCI never fails." Alfred mused and handed her the phone they had taken from her. "Call him. Tell him you finished the mission."
"And then what?" Sie wanted to know, her finger hovering over the call button.
"Whatever he tells you." Alfred shrugged. "As for anything else, improvise."
"As you wish." Sie nodded and pressed the button.
"As for you two." Alfred said after ushering Leonard and Penny out of the room. "Call the cleaners."
"Penny, you do it." Leonard told her and handed her his phone. "Number's saved under Food Delivery."
"Anything else?" Penny asked, her finger hovering over the call button.
"Yes, call a doctor." Alfred groaned.
"I'll take care of that." Leonard said, grabbing Alfred's phone. "You sit down."
"What do I say?" Penny wanted to know.
"You order food for the number of bodies to remove. In this case, twelve." Leonard replied. "Also, two desserts."
"What does that mean?"
"It's for the number of cars that have to be removed." Alfred explained. "Sie will leave with one of theirs, the other two need drivers to take away."
"Right, Leonard did the same thing back home." Penny remembered and dialed the number.
"How may we be of service?" a female voice answered the phone.
"Hello, I'd like to order food for twelve." Penny said and gave her Alfred's address when prompted. "Also, two desserts."
"We will be there shortly." the woman on the other end said and ended the call.
"They will be here shortly." Penny told them. "Whatever that means."
"It's code." Alfred shrugged. "They won't be here for ninety minutes but it would sound weird if they said this in a food delivery call. Nobody would order food if it took ninety minutes to deliver, even without the cooking time."
"Where do they come from?"
"Montpelier." Alfred said and saw Penny's questioning look. "Vermont's capital city?"
"Oh, right." Penny nodded. "Something I should maybe refresh my knowledge about."
"Yeah, you should do that." Leonard winked and walked back into Alfred's office.
"Not for another two days." Sie spoke into the phone. "Patrick, that old man killed half of my men, there are certain things I need to do before I can bring him anywhere... Very well."
"So?" Leonard asked after she had hung up.
"My orders are to bring him to a warehouse in Aberdeen." Sie said.
"Isn't that in Scotland?" Penny wondered.
"South Dakota." Sie added.
"Why there?" Leonard asked.
"Patrick is holed up in a small bungalow." Sie shrugged. "He seems to be in hiding because his former henchman is running amok all over his business."
"Yeah, I heard about that." Leonard chuckled. "He's more effective in a few months than law enforcement in a decade at dismantling that organization."
"Can I go now?" Sie asked.
"Yes." Alfred nodded. "And remember, you will forget that we exist."
"I will." Sie agreed, but Penny could hear the almost mocking tone in her voice.
"Just in case you get the idea of reneging on this promise, do you know what this symbol means?" Penny saw Alfred throw one of the organization symbols at her, one that closely resembled those that Leonard had given to Penny's parents.
"I do." Sie slowly nodded and looked at Alfred with fresh eyes. "Wait, you are..."
"I was." Alfred confirmed.
"And they...?" Sie pointed to Leonard and Penny.
"We are." Leonard told her.
"Suffice it to say, I will never come after you again." Sie stated, and for once, she actually meant it.
Leonard escorted Sie to the cars, the woman opening the door and getting in. She threw one last look at this ostensibly innocuous man before closing the door and starting the car. When this short man turned to leave, Sie lets out a breath and grips the steering wheel with shaking hands, feeling something that she hadn't felt in a long time.
Fear.
She knew about this organization from her father. A kind of brotherhood of assassins that seemed to be able to kill their targets at will, no matter where they were. Assassins trained to the peak of ability and the way that this son of Alfred and the blond woman have dispatched her men with apparent ease, even Ludvig, who hadn't been bested by anyone in close combat due to his sheer size.
She cursed loudly. Her grip on the leadership of the VCI was tenuous at best, given how Conrad was constantly trying to wrestle control from her. Even though she got the money for the job, she still lost a dozen good men, something Conrad would definitely use against her, should he make the attempt again. If he wasn't such a good administrator, she would have killed him long ago.
While Sie drove away, Penny helped Alfred get comfortable, the older man audibly groaning from the pain he was experiencing and had been able to conceal during his interaction with the mercenary woman. She could see his nose clearly broken or at least cracked, he held his sides which told of rib damage and he had blood all over his shirt.
"Most of it isn't mine." Alfred noticed her stare at his shirt.
"What did they do to you?" Penny sighed and tried to gently wipe some of the dried blood from his chin and cheek.
"They beat me up." Alfred shrugged. "Repeatedly. Because I killed four of their guys."
"Assholes." Penny whispered. "Was it really a good idea to let her go?"
"As I said, I knew her father and even her, even though she doesn't remember me." Alfred nodded. "She always was true to her word but even if she wouldn't be in this case, seeing what we a really are will surely have put the fear of god into her. And there's another reason for letting her go."
"Which is?" Penny wanted to know.
"Her mercenary group has some more people in high positions that I know or know about." Alfred explained. "And with the loss of her men here, her position becomes shaky in the company, so they will be a little more busy fighting each other than coming after us."
"It still boggles my mind that just mentioning our organization causes such fear in so many people." she mused. "Especially given the fact that there are only so few of us."
"Well, there's more than a few." Alfred chuckled.
"I remember Leonard saying that there's maybe a dozen actual assassins." she said. "And hundreds of people like Howard and Bernadette."
"A dozen is quite the low ball." Alfred said. "There are between two- and three hundred assassins in the world, but his estimate of the support staff is pretty accurate. We have hotels all over the world, in every major city, though few are solely for us. Most only keep one floor reserved for us at all times."
"Interesting." Penny was impressed.
"Doctor Winston is here." a returning Leonard proclaimed, the older man Penny met during her training following Leonard into the room.
"Oh god, Alfred." Albert said and quickly knelt down to get to Alfred's height. "I guess this is the work of the people that I saw lying around dead around the property?"
"It is." Alfred confirmed. "I think my nose is broken, my ribs hurt as well, and numerous other things."
"Yeah, the nose is clearly broken." Albert nodded. "Can you stand up?"
"Sure." Alfred said and got up.
"Young man, can you help take off his shirt?" Albert looked at Leonard.
Together, they got the bloody shirt off of Alfred. Albert stepped in behind him and began pressing against both sides, going slowly up the ribcage until he reached the sixth rib, when Alfred hissed in pain. Albert went further up, noticing Alfred's pain when he also pushed against the fifth and fourth rib.
"The fifth rib on the left is broken, the sixth and fourth cracked, probably from whatever broke the fifth."Albert said and held a stethoscope against Alfred's back. "Take a breath, as deep as you can."
Alfred did was he was asked, his face contorting in pain when his filled lungs pushed against his ribcage. Albert made him do it again, though not as deep and listened for any sounds of liquid in Alfred's lungs. Finally satisfied, he took the stethoscope out of his ears and nodded to himself.
"Fortunately, your left lung doesn't seem to have been punctured by the broken rib." Albert told him. "But there's only so much I can do with what I have here. I would advice you get an X-ray and MRI at the Montpelier hotel as soon as you can to make sure your lung doesn't have microscopic perforations caused by bone splinters."
"I'll drive him." Leonard stated.
"You have to prepare for a fight." Alfred turned to his son. "As does she."
"Dad, we can be in South Dakota in a few hours, I have a plane." Leonard countered. "I'll drive you, end of story."
While Leonard left, Albert wrapped Alfred's chest into a large layer of bandages, pulling them tight to support his broken and bruised ribs. Afterwards, Albert put his hands against the sides of Alfred's nose, feeling the break was and then, to Penny's shock and sympathetic pain, snapped it back into place, Alfred crying out in pain before holding his nose.
"When you get to the hotel, tell the doctor to fix your nose if he deems it necessary." Albert said. "It might not be fully set."
"Will do." Alfred groaned. "You sadist."
"The cuts will heal naturally." Albert continued with a smirk at Alfred's remark and took him to the bathroom, where he cleaned his wounds before using iodine and cotton to disinfect them.
Once Albert was done, he sat down with Alfred and the two older men just talked. Penny went outside to Leonard and found him going through the pockets of the mercenaries and piling up their stuff.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
"Taking all their weapons and piling them up." Leonard replied. "It will speed up the work of the cleaners and I need to do something."
"I was just about to say something about contaminating the evidence but then I remembered that there aren't any crime scene investigators coming." she chuckled and began helping him. "Wanna pile the corpses together as well?"
"No, the cleaners can deal with those." Leonard shook his head. "Not to mention that we don't want to spread their blood around even more. It will take a lot of watering the make the blood already on the ground soak into the ground without a trace being visible to the naked eye."
"Who would come here to see the blood, the cops?" she wondered.
"My dad employs people to work his fields, remember?"
"Oh, right." she realized. "When you drive your dad to Montpelier, I'll come with you."
"No." he refused.
"Why not?"
"Someone has to take care of the dogs." he pointed to the direction of his house. "While the total driving time will be about three hours, I don't know how long I will be staying there with dad."
"I understand." she nodded in acceptance.
They continued gathering the belongings of the mercenaries, which was mostly their weapons and some smaller, apparently personal items, two of which included wedding rings. She wondered how many of these men had families at home, families that now lost their breadwinner. Would they even be told that their husbands or fathers had died? Or would they only learn once the checks stopped coming in? During her contemplation, two vehicles arrived, one a large transport van, the other a smaller passenger van. A woman exited the passenger van, patiently waiting at the gate when they saw Leonard and Penny.
"Come on." he said to Penny and walked towards the gate.
"Good afternoon, Leonard. Mam." the woman leading the group greeted them.
"Hey Felicia." Leonard smiled as he opened the gate.
"I never thought I would have to do this at your father's place." Felicia said as the two cars drove onto the property, after which Leonard closed the gate again. "Is he...?"
"He's alive." Leonard nodded and pointed to the house, where Alfred and Albert were coming out of the front door.
"Good afternoon, Felicia." Alfred greeted the woman.
"Alfred. Albert." Felicia nodded to the two men and tilted her head towards her men who began their work.
Penny watched as the men did their job. Stretch foil was used to wrap their bodies up, several layers thick while one of them collected the weapons into a large plastic bin. When the bodies were wrapped, the men put them into the vans. The large man Penny had killed needed three of them to move into the vehicle and she could see them struggling to move the guy's bulk.
After the eight bodies outside were done, they walked into the house and upstairs, where the four bodies that Leonard had dropped were all in one place. Since Leonard had killed them with quick knife stabs to the heart, there was little blood to clean up but after the four bodies were done, one of the man grabbed the cleaning supplies and wiped the area clean of any residual blood. They couldn't do much against the blood outside, so after a quick conversation with Alfred, the woman called her men off of the attempts.
"I hope I don't have to come here again." Felicia said to Alfred as two of her men stepped into the mercenaries' cars and the others getting into theirs.
"Same here." Alfred said and handed her fifteen gold coins. "Thank you, Felicia."
"Why fifteen coins?" Penny asked as the vehicles drove away. "I thought it was two coins for transport and one coin per dead body. Twelve bodies plus driving is fourteen, right?"
"It's five silver coins for disposal of a vehicle, so two of them come up to a golden coin." Alfred explained.
"Dad, you need some clothes packed?" Leonard asked.
"I have a go-bag under by bed." Alfred told his son, who went inside to get it.
"I just realized, I will have to walk home." she mentioned. "We came here through a tunnel."
"Nonsense." Alfred waved her off. "Leonard can drop you off when he drives me to Montpelier since he needs to change as well."
"But then he will have to walk when he gets back, no?"
"Walk where?" a returning Leonard asked, the bag in his hand.
"Home, when you come back, if you take Alfred's car." Penny clarified.
"I'll drop you off and pack my skates." Leonard shrugged. "Then I can skate back here after my return."
"Alright, if that's what you want." she said. "You could also call ahead and I'll pick you up."
"Also an idea." he nodded and walked to Alfred's garage.
"Nice wheels." Penny chuckled upon seeing the station wagon in Alfred's garage.
"Don't mock my car." Alfred tutted.
"I just realized that I lived here for months and never set foot in your garage." Penny said.
Alfred got into the passenger seat while Leonard got behind the wheels. Albert said his goodbyes and got into his car, driving away while Penny waited for them to leave so she could close the gate, realizing that the bars were cut apart.
"Guys, what do we do with the gate?" Penny leaned down to talk to them through the open window. "They cut through the bars."
"Go into my garage and get some bicycle chains." Alfred said and clicked the remote to open the garage door. "We can use those to temporarily shut the gate."
Penny did as she was told and walked into the garage, seeing the various chains. She took five, one for each bar, the keys still in the locks. She returned to the gate and used the chains to lock the gate before getting into the backseat and handing Alfred the keys. Leonard drove them to his house, where Penny exited and gave him a kiss through the window and bidding goodbye to Alfred.
While Penny walked into the house to take care of the dogs, Leonard quickly changed and then drove his dad towards the state's capital. Breaking speed limits wherever and whenever he could, the trip took less than usual and finally, he drove his car into the underground garage underneath the hotel. After helping Alfred into the elevator and going up into the lobby, Alfred pretended to be fine in case of any civilians present and walked with Leonard to the counter.
"We need a room." Leonard said and pushed a golden coin towards the man behind the desk. "And the doctor."
"And some of the tech." Alfred added and pushed two more coins to the man.
"Alfred?" an accented voice surprised them from behind.
"Kjeld?" Alfred was clearly surprised to see the older man. "I thought you retired."
"One never retires from service." Kjeld chuckled. "Only in death does duty end."
"And I see you're still into that science fiction stuff you always talked about." Alfred shook his head in mirth.
"That's a strange name." Leonard mentioned.
"I was born in Denmark." Kjeld told him. "And you are?"
"This is my son, Leonard." Alfred introduced him.
"Nice to meet you." Kjeld shook Leonard's hand. "So, what brings you here?"
"There was... an incident..." Leonard began.
"I got attacked by mercenaries in my home." Alfred interrupted his son. "They injured me quite severely."
"WHAT?" Kjeld shout-gasped. "Who ordered the hit?"
"Patrick Brostin." Alfred told him.
"Why would he do this?" Kjeld wondered. "Doesn't he know what you used to be?"
"I don't think so." Alfred replied. "He knows me from our days in the intelligence services. And as for the reason why, Leonard killed his son during a job."
"Oh." Kjeld hummed. "Come on."
The man led them down the stairs where the bar for the assassins was but took a different turn. Another door led to a moderately sized office with a middle-aged man sitting at a desk, who immediately got up when Kjeld signaled him.
"This is Alfred Hofstadter, one of our honored elders." Kjeld told the doctor. "He needs some imaging."
"Welcome, honored elder." the doctor bowed, making Leonard wonder what was happening.
"One of my ribs is broken, two more probably cracked." Alfred said. "And my nose."
"I will prepare the X-ray." the doctor nodded and left the room through one of the many doors.
"Honored elder?" Leonard looked at his father and Kjeld. "Is that a real thing?"
"Of course." Kjeld nodded.
"Why have you never told me about that?" Leonard directed at his dad.
"It never came up since I retired." Alfred shrugged, wincing from the pain when it moved his broken rib.
"At what age do you become one?" Leonard wondered.
"Oh, it will be at least another thirty years for you, young man." Kjeld laughed.
"It's ready." the doctor announced after reappearing. "Please take off your upper body clothes and pants and remove any metal object."
"Should I wash up before?" Alfred said, some blood still stuck to his upper body.
"No, I'll clean it later." the doctor said.
"By the way, what's your name?" Alfred asked as he walked towards the x-ray room.
"Brett Meyer." the man replied.
Leonard waited outside as the two men stepped into the x-ray room. Alfred got on the table and waited while Brett moved the machine to get it into the correct position. When it was, Brett left the room and activated the machine, taking two pictures before returning and making Alfred lie on his side to get a different angle on his ribs.
Once that was done, he returned and used a different machine head and placed it over Alfred's head, as well as two more on the sides. He left the room again and three pictures were taken, one from above and two from the side. When they were finished, Alfred got up again and left the room, finding Leonard sitting on one of the chairs.
"Done?" Leonard asked.
"Not yet." Brett shook his head. "These were only the x-rays for the broken rib and his nose. But I'd like to do an MRI too to make sure there isn't any tissue damage around the injured areas."
"How long will that take?" Leonard asked.
"Warming up the MRI and the scan itself, at least sixty minutes, if not more." Brett told them.
"Son, you don't have to wait for me, I'll stay here tonight anyway." Alfred said.
"Okay." Leonard accepted. "Should I pick you up tomorrow?"
"I just take organization transport." Alfred shook his head. "Brett, can you give us a minute?"
"I'll start up the MRI." Brett nodded and left the room.
"Son, you're way too agitated." Alfred counseled.
"Well, my dad was just attacked by a group of mercenaries in his own home, ordered by the leader of a large crime syndicate, the son of whose leader I killed." Leonard rolled his eyes. "So, excuse me for being a little wound up."
"There's no need to get snippy with me, son." Alfred pointed his finger at him.
"Sorry, dad." Leonard apologized. "It's been a long day."
"That it has." Alfred nodded. "I got a job for you."
"What?"
"Go home to Penny and make love to her all night." Alfred told him.
"Wh... what?" Leonard stammered after a few seconds, his brain having trouble to comprehend what he just heard.
"Leonard, how do you think Penny feels?" Alfred looked poignantly at him.
"Well... I'm sure she's also a little anxious given what we had to do today." Leonard said.
"Exactly." Alfred nodded. "So, I noticed how relaxed she was after she spent her day off with you and how relaxed you were after spending the night with her. Therefore, you need some relaxation. And while I know that you could find different ways to do that, why not choose the one that's most fun."
"Wow, told by my dad to have sex with my girlfriend." Leonard groaned, his face blushing.
"Don't be dramatic." Alfred chuckled. "You know I'm right."
"I do." Leonard nodded. "Though the approach is a little weird when one is being told to do it."
"Maybe." Alfred admitted. "However, you need a clear head for what is to come, you know that."
"Yes." Leonard conceded. "We'll leave tomorrow evening for South Dakota, if you're home before that, call me."
"I will." Alfred agreed. "Now go."
Leonard hugged his dad gently, mindful of his broken ribs and left the room, leaving Alfred alone. The older man smiled and pulled his phone from his pants, scrolling down to the number of the person he wanted to reach.
"Yes?" came the voice from the speaker.
"Penny, it's Alfred." he said and smiled when he heard her reaction to the reason he called.
Again, sorry for the delay. I hope it will run a little more smoothly from now on.
Review please :)