Fic: Losing Ground [19]
Fic: Losing Ground [19]
Author: LMX
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: R
Pairings: Nate/Sophie, Alec/Parker
AN: See parts [2] and [3].
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
[19]
Nate listened when his thieves suggested things because he knew they'd not worked much with teams before - except for Eliot, and the whole chain of command thing still niggled him when Nate tried to get his opinion and his training to defer to a superior took over.
He listened because they were all very experienced in their own fields and, however dubious their moral ground, he knew they would never lead the whole team astray.
Just being near Alec and listening to him talk to himself Nate had learned more about computers than he'd ever been taught in business classes and IT seminars, not to mention about pop culture. Working with Sophie had given him insight into how women work and how they manipulate men and women alike. Working with Parker he had learned to improvise and how to pick twenty different types of lock. And Eliot had taught him how to watch his back and how to get into and out of potentially very dangerous scenarios safely. Eliot never tried to teach Nate to defend himself, and Nate wasn't sure if that was because he thought Nate could already do that or if he didn't want Nate putting himself in harm's way.
Still, Nate was putting himself in harm's way now, and calling on every bit of knowledge Eliot had ever shared with them as he did it.
Apollo was busy sealing every exit to the building except the one Nate wanted to use. Hardison was tapping every camera feed in the area to try and work out what they were going in against and Sophie and Parker were acting their hearts out getting the information out to the marks who needed it.
"All done here," Apollo whispered across the comms.
"Good, clear out," Nate said, reaching into the back of his jeans and pulling out the gun hidden there. Mikael looked back at him and smiled at the gun in his hands.
"You know how to use that, Ford?" she asked lightly.
"Ask Sophie," Nate replied with a sharp-edged smile. He was too tense for small talk, especially for small talk about guns.
"Just don't point it at me," she snarked, pulling a serious piece of weaponry from the pack she had arrived with.
"Nate, we think that's done it," Sophie whispered.
"My guys just bolted," Parker added.
Nate looked at Mikael and nodded silently. They stepped inside, Mikael leading and waving him through the door. She didn't stop moving when the room came empty, heading straight away for another door and through that into the room adjoining. She gestured that he should go right as the corridor split and he took a deep breath before stepping through the next door.
All the advice and all the methods and all of Eliot's words flew right out of his head as he finished scanning the room for danger and started actually *looking*. There were chains and weapons and... God the stink of God-knows-what and Eliot. Eliot so God-damn still, more blood than Nate could conceive of, curled up on the floor like so much meat. There was movement in the corner, someone turning towards him, and Nate didn't even wait to see his face.
Mikael was pale when Nate came back to himself. She'd moved past him to Eliot's side and she might have said something out loud but Nate couldn't focus on her. Later he'd find out that she'd demanded Hardison send for an ambulance and had cleaned and hidden their guns and the body while he had stood there.
He got into the second ambulance without any objection. Hardison intercepted them at the hospital with IDs, giving Mikael as Eliot's sister and Nate as whatever alias had seemed most funny to Hardison when he'd put the most recent batch together, months ago now. Nate knew he was doing a fairly good job of looking like he was in shock and Mikael hadn't stopped crying since the ambulance had arrived. Her tears, at least, were entirely fake.
- 0 -
Forty minutes later, Nate was in a hospital bed, drip in his arm and way too many thoughts in his head. Parker and Apollo appeared first, Parker looking unreasonably young and timid, Apollo's hand in the centre of her back. She latched on to his arm as soon as she was close enough, and Nate had to force himself to meet her eyes.
"You alright?" he asked hoarsely, trying to make his mind work in a logical order and not focus on what he'd seen.
Parker frowned at him. "You're asking the wrong question," she hissed.
Nate laid back on the bed. He was too tired to deal with Parker-level crazy right now.
Apollo patted her on the shoulder and left, Parker's hands on his arm tightening painfully. Sophie and Hardison came in together, Sophie collapsing immediately into the chair beside his bed with silent tears streaking her makeup. Hardison crossed to the window at the end of the room and pressed his forehead against the cold glass.
"What do we do?" Sophie asked quietly. "What do we do now?"
Nate felt the intensity of their gazes and looked at Hardison, jealous of his silence right now. Hardison turned and met Nate's eyes, holding that gaze for a minute before signing, [Eliot is a lucky fucker], tears in his eyes and breath hitching.
Nate sat up sharply, nearly pulling out the IV line and dislodging Parker. "He's alive?" he demanded.
"God Nate," Sophie exclaimed. "I'm sorry, we thought you... Yes, yes. He's alive."
Nate's thoughts went back to the form the MTs had dragged out of that warehouse at a hundred miles per hour and horror set back in.
"He's in a bad way," Sophie continued. "That... That monster did things to him. God, fuck. I can't even..."
Hardison stepped up beside Nate's bed, drawing his attention. [Took his tongue.] he finished for Sophie, giving a full body shudder. Nate stared at Alec's hands, trying to make sense of the signs.
[Repeat it?] he asked with his hands.
[He cut out Eliot's tongue.] Alec signed for him, more slowly this time. There was something about the 'cut' sign that was brutal in this context. Nate's stomach flipped.
There wasn't much to say after that. They huddled together as if for warmth, and waited for news.
- 0 -
Sophie and Parker came back from their visit with Eliot not long after they'd left, and Nate wasn't sure if he was losing time or if he should be worried. "He's not in his bed," Sophie said with a sigh as she took a seat beside his bed. "The nurse says he might have been taken for more tests."
Nate blinked slowly, feeling the world come back into focus and slowly take shape into something... "How did the bed look?"
"Nate?" Sophie asked.
"Parker, was the bedding pulled back neatly, like a nurse had done it?" he pressed.
"No, the sheets were all tangled up and..." Parker looked at Sophie, than back at Nate. "Oh..."
"Where's Hardison?" Nate demanded, realising he had missed the other man leaving with some dismay. It was time to pull himself back together. This wasn't helping anyone, least of all Eliot.
"He went downstairs to find a wireless connection," Sophie offered.
"Hardison, ping if you're picking up on earbuds," Nate said out loud, touching his ear when he registered the absence of his own earbud.
"He pinged," Parker said, "He can hear you."
"Security cameras around the hospital, I want everything from the last two hours. The exits and the ward Eliot was on specifically." Nate looked around. "Parker, find me some clothes. My phone must be nearby, and I need my earbud. Sophie, go and talk to the doctors. If you have to, explain that Eliot is the kind of person to run away from hospitals regardless of his condition."
- 0 -
"Ma'am, your friend was not well enough to have left under his own power, I assure you of that." The ward sister was a grey haired woman with kindly eyes, but Sophie wasn't being reassured by the hand on her elbow, leading her out of the ward. "What I need," she continued. "Is for you to go and sit in the waiting room like everyone else until your friend comes back from whatever essential tests are being run."
"I'm trying to tell you, he hasn't been taken for tests." Sophie sighed, pulling away. This wasn't getting her anywhere. "Fine," she growled, marching out of the ward and down the corridor. Making herself stop and breathe and check where she was going before steaming off. This would not be the time to get lost in the hospital. "Nate?"
"Yes Sophie." Nate sounded distracted on the comms, obviously already deep in planning.
"They don't know anything up here," she told him reluctantly. "They're still sure he's not missing."
"Meet us down..." Nate hesitated. "I'm sending Parker up to you, wait where you are."
Parker popped up beside her before Sophie had time to object to the correction. While she was still able to find her own way she was determined to do it. Still, from the way Parker was holding herself, this had been as much a task to keep Parker busy as to stop her getting lost on the way.
With a sigh, Sophie moved a little closer to Parker - something that was being allowed more and more by the blond thief recently - and followed her as she headed back to Nate wordlessly.
- 0 -
Nate and Hardison had taken over a corner of the hospital canteen, computer screen between them and a furious signed argument going on.
Parker stepped up and grabbed Hardison's elbow, silencing him for a moment and drawing both their attention. Nate took a breath, clenched his fists by his side.
"Sophie, Parker, I need you to wrap up this job any way you see fit," he said and signed, "Hardison, I need you feeding me data. That's what I need from you." He stared Hardison down for a second. "I can track him on my own, but I need to be able to move fast. I need tickets or passes or updates as fast as you can get them to me."
"Why can't we come with you?"
[We're coming with you.]
Sophie and Hardison glanced at each other, both having stood and spoken at the same time. Nate looked between them, then over at Parker.
Nate sighed and shook his head. "The more of us there are chasing him, the more likely he is to see us coming and bolt. We're creeping up on an injured animal here. What we need is information, patience and possibly a tranq. gun."
"Is that how you caught him before, Nate?" Sophie asked sharply.
"I've never caught him before," Nate replied. "I'm relying on the fact that he knows me, that he'll let me close enough to talk."
- 0 -
It took Nate two more days, and in the end he tracked Eliot down not far from where it had all happened. He'd speculated that the team might have caches and hideouts for if everything went wrong, had it proven when Sophie had been forced to show off one of hers in LA. Still it was a surprise to find Eliot in an upmarket apartment complex, as close to the centre of town as possible.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to read: 'Have you on security cameras. Still no movement from the jungle. Parker says the window is the best way in. Me? I'd just knock.'
He'd never felt so good having a team of people at his back, however damaged they all were. He shut his phone, nodded at the camera he could see and walked into the foyer of the complex.
Three hours later he walked out again with a firm grasp around Eliot's bicep. He ignored every message on his phone as the rest of the team tracked his car by traffic cam and CCTV across the city. Lights turned green for them at every junction. Anything that could be done to get them home sooner was done.
They were all stood at the entrance to the carpark underneath Nate's apartment when he pulled up, Eliot barely visible over the dash where he was hunched in the passenger seat. Parker had already run up and down the street half a dozen times in waiting for them, and her grip on Sophie's arm when they finally appeared would leave bruises.
With one hand, Nate asked them to wait there as he parked on the other side of the lot and got out, walking back towards them and leaving Eliot in the car. Sophie's heart sank a little.
"Nate, is he...?" she started.
"It's alright, Sophie. He just needs a bit more quiet time. I convinced him he could do that with us nearby, but he's not happy about it." Nate glanced up at the apartment, then back at the car. "Parker, can you go and make up the spare bed? Hardison, I need all the electronics in the spare room out of there, and I need it dark. Once you're done, get out and go home. I'll contact you as soon as he's ready for company. Sophie, do we still have a phone number for Dr. Laroque?"
"She's in LA," Sophie objected, watching the others disappear reluctantly inside.
"Eliot knows her," Nate explained. "He'll trust her. I don't know enough to make sure he's really alright."
"Of course he's not alright. He..." Sophie trailed off. "I'll phone her now."
"Sophie..." Nate said as she started to walk away, his voice hoarser than he'd intended. Sophie stopped, looked back.
"Oh, Nate," she murmured, seeing everything that was showing on Nate's face, stepping into his space and wrapping him up in her arms. "You brought him home. The rest will just take time."
Nate steeled himself and stepped away from Sophie's warmth, clearing his throat. "Let me know when it's done and they're out, get Hardison to take you home. I'll contact you as soon as he's ready for company." Nate glanced back at the car, and braced himself for battle.
-
Master Post
Author: LMX
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: R
Pairings: Nate/Sophie, Alec/Parker
AN: See parts [2] and [3].
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
[19]
Nate listened when his thieves suggested things because he knew they'd not worked much with teams before - except for Eliot, and the whole chain of command thing still niggled him when Nate tried to get his opinion and his training to defer to a superior took over.
He listened because they were all very experienced in their own fields and, however dubious their moral ground, he knew they would never lead the whole team astray.
Just being near Alec and listening to him talk to himself Nate had learned more about computers than he'd ever been taught in business classes and IT seminars, not to mention about pop culture. Working with Sophie had given him insight into how women work and how they manipulate men and women alike. Working with Parker he had learned to improvise and how to pick twenty different types of lock. And Eliot had taught him how to watch his back and how to get into and out of potentially very dangerous scenarios safely. Eliot never tried to teach Nate to defend himself, and Nate wasn't sure if that was because he thought Nate could already do that or if he didn't want Nate putting himself in harm's way.
Still, Nate was putting himself in harm's way now, and calling on every bit of knowledge Eliot had ever shared with them as he did it.
Apollo was busy sealing every exit to the building except the one Nate wanted to use. Hardison was tapping every camera feed in the area to try and work out what they were going in against and Sophie and Parker were acting their hearts out getting the information out to the marks who needed it.
"All done here," Apollo whispered across the comms.
"Good, clear out," Nate said, reaching into the back of his jeans and pulling out the gun hidden there. Mikael looked back at him and smiled at the gun in his hands.
"You know how to use that, Ford?" she asked lightly.
"Ask Sophie," Nate replied with a sharp-edged smile. He was too tense for small talk, especially for small talk about guns.
"Just don't point it at me," she snarked, pulling a serious piece of weaponry from the pack she had arrived with.
"Nate, we think that's done it," Sophie whispered.
"My guys just bolted," Parker added.
Nate looked at Mikael and nodded silently. They stepped inside, Mikael leading and waving him through the door. She didn't stop moving when the room came empty, heading straight away for another door and through that into the room adjoining. She gestured that he should go right as the corridor split and he took a deep breath before stepping through the next door.
All the advice and all the methods and all of Eliot's words flew right out of his head as he finished scanning the room for danger and started actually *looking*. There were chains and weapons and... God the stink of God-knows-what and Eliot. Eliot so God-damn still, more blood than Nate could conceive of, curled up on the floor like so much meat. There was movement in the corner, someone turning towards him, and Nate didn't even wait to see his face.
Mikael was pale when Nate came back to himself. She'd moved past him to Eliot's side and she might have said something out loud but Nate couldn't focus on her. Later he'd find out that she'd demanded Hardison send for an ambulance and had cleaned and hidden their guns and the body while he had stood there.
He got into the second ambulance without any objection. Hardison intercepted them at the hospital with IDs, giving Mikael as Eliot's sister and Nate as whatever alias had seemed most funny to Hardison when he'd put the most recent batch together, months ago now. Nate knew he was doing a fairly good job of looking like he was in shock and Mikael hadn't stopped crying since the ambulance had arrived. Her tears, at least, were entirely fake.
- 0 -
Forty minutes later, Nate was in a hospital bed, drip in his arm and way too many thoughts in his head. Parker and Apollo appeared first, Parker looking unreasonably young and timid, Apollo's hand in the centre of her back. She latched on to his arm as soon as she was close enough, and Nate had to force himself to meet her eyes.
"You alright?" he asked hoarsely, trying to make his mind work in a logical order and not focus on what he'd seen.
Parker frowned at him. "You're asking the wrong question," she hissed.
Nate laid back on the bed. He was too tired to deal with Parker-level crazy right now.
Apollo patted her on the shoulder and left, Parker's hands on his arm tightening painfully. Sophie and Hardison came in together, Sophie collapsing immediately into the chair beside his bed with silent tears streaking her makeup. Hardison crossed to the window at the end of the room and pressed his forehead against the cold glass.
"What do we do?" Sophie asked quietly. "What do we do now?"
Nate felt the intensity of their gazes and looked at Hardison, jealous of his silence right now. Hardison turned and met Nate's eyes, holding that gaze for a minute before signing, [Eliot is a lucky fucker], tears in his eyes and breath hitching.
Nate sat up sharply, nearly pulling out the IV line and dislodging Parker. "He's alive?" he demanded.
"God Nate," Sophie exclaimed. "I'm sorry, we thought you... Yes, yes. He's alive."
Nate's thoughts went back to the form the MTs had dragged out of that warehouse at a hundred miles per hour and horror set back in.
"He's in a bad way," Sophie continued. "That... That monster did things to him. God, fuck. I can't even..."
Hardison stepped up beside Nate's bed, drawing his attention. [Took his tongue.] he finished for Sophie, giving a full body shudder. Nate stared at Alec's hands, trying to make sense of the signs.
[Repeat it?] he asked with his hands.
[He cut out Eliot's tongue.] Alec signed for him, more slowly this time. There was something about the 'cut' sign that was brutal in this context. Nate's stomach flipped.
There wasn't much to say after that. They huddled together as if for warmth, and waited for news.
- 0 -
Sophie and Parker came back from their visit with Eliot not long after they'd left, and Nate wasn't sure if he was losing time or if he should be worried. "He's not in his bed," Sophie said with a sigh as she took a seat beside his bed. "The nurse says he might have been taken for more tests."
Nate blinked slowly, feeling the world come back into focus and slowly take shape into something... "How did the bed look?"
"Nate?" Sophie asked.
"Parker, was the bedding pulled back neatly, like a nurse had done it?" he pressed.
"No, the sheets were all tangled up and..." Parker looked at Sophie, than back at Nate. "Oh..."
"Where's Hardison?" Nate demanded, realising he had missed the other man leaving with some dismay. It was time to pull himself back together. This wasn't helping anyone, least of all Eliot.
"He went downstairs to find a wireless connection," Sophie offered.
"Hardison, ping if you're picking up on earbuds," Nate said out loud, touching his ear when he registered the absence of his own earbud.
"He pinged," Parker said, "He can hear you."
"Security cameras around the hospital, I want everything from the last two hours. The exits and the ward Eliot was on specifically." Nate looked around. "Parker, find me some clothes. My phone must be nearby, and I need my earbud. Sophie, go and talk to the doctors. If you have to, explain that Eliot is the kind of person to run away from hospitals regardless of his condition."
- 0 -
"Ma'am, your friend was not well enough to have left under his own power, I assure you of that." The ward sister was a grey haired woman with kindly eyes, but Sophie wasn't being reassured by the hand on her elbow, leading her out of the ward. "What I need," she continued. "Is for you to go and sit in the waiting room like everyone else until your friend comes back from whatever essential tests are being run."
"I'm trying to tell you, he hasn't been taken for tests." Sophie sighed, pulling away. This wasn't getting her anywhere. "Fine," she growled, marching out of the ward and down the corridor. Making herself stop and breathe and check where she was going before steaming off. This would not be the time to get lost in the hospital. "Nate?"
"Yes Sophie." Nate sounded distracted on the comms, obviously already deep in planning.
"They don't know anything up here," she told him reluctantly. "They're still sure he's not missing."
"Meet us down..." Nate hesitated. "I'm sending Parker up to you, wait where you are."
Parker popped up beside her before Sophie had time to object to the correction. While she was still able to find her own way she was determined to do it. Still, from the way Parker was holding herself, this had been as much a task to keep Parker busy as to stop her getting lost on the way.
With a sigh, Sophie moved a little closer to Parker - something that was being allowed more and more by the blond thief recently - and followed her as she headed back to Nate wordlessly.
- 0 -
Nate and Hardison had taken over a corner of the hospital canteen, computer screen between them and a furious signed argument going on.
Parker stepped up and grabbed Hardison's elbow, silencing him for a moment and drawing both their attention. Nate took a breath, clenched his fists by his side.
"Sophie, Parker, I need you to wrap up this job any way you see fit," he said and signed, "Hardison, I need you feeding me data. That's what I need from you." He stared Hardison down for a second. "I can track him on my own, but I need to be able to move fast. I need tickets or passes or updates as fast as you can get them to me."
"Why can't we come with you?"
[We're coming with you.]
Sophie and Hardison glanced at each other, both having stood and spoken at the same time. Nate looked between them, then over at Parker.
Nate sighed and shook his head. "The more of us there are chasing him, the more likely he is to see us coming and bolt. We're creeping up on an injured animal here. What we need is information, patience and possibly a tranq. gun."
"Is that how you caught him before, Nate?" Sophie asked sharply.
"I've never caught him before," Nate replied. "I'm relying on the fact that he knows me, that he'll let me close enough to talk."
- 0 -
It took Nate two more days, and in the end he tracked Eliot down not far from where it had all happened. He'd speculated that the team might have caches and hideouts for if everything went wrong, had it proven when Sophie had been forced to show off one of hers in LA. Still it was a surprise to find Eliot in an upmarket apartment complex, as close to the centre of town as possible.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to read: 'Have you on security cameras. Still no movement from the jungle. Parker says the window is the best way in. Me? I'd just knock.'
He'd never felt so good having a team of people at his back, however damaged they all were. He shut his phone, nodded at the camera he could see and walked into the foyer of the complex.
Three hours later he walked out again with a firm grasp around Eliot's bicep. He ignored every message on his phone as the rest of the team tracked his car by traffic cam and CCTV across the city. Lights turned green for them at every junction. Anything that could be done to get them home sooner was done.
They were all stood at the entrance to the carpark underneath Nate's apartment when he pulled up, Eliot barely visible over the dash where he was hunched in the passenger seat. Parker had already run up and down the street half a dozen times in waiting for them, and her grip on Sophie's arm when they finally appeared would leave bruises.
With one hand, Nate asked them to wait there as he parked on the other side of the lot and got out, walking back towards them and leaving Eliot in the car. Sophie's heart sank a little.
"Nate, is he...?" she started.
"It's alright, Sophie. He just needs a bit more quiet time. I convinced him he could do that with us nearby, but he's not happy about it." Nate glanced up at the apartment, then back at the car. "Parker, can you go and make up the spare bed? Hardison, I need all the electronics in the spare room out of there, and I need it dark. Once you're done, get out and go home. I'll contact you as soon as he's ready for company. Sophie, do we still have a phone number for Dr. Laroque?"
"She's in LA," Sophie objected, watching the others disappear reluctantly inside.
"Eliot knows her," Nate explained. "He'll trust her. I don't know enough to make sure he's really alright."
"Of course he's not alright. He..." Sophie trailed off. "I'll phone her now."
"Sophie..." Nate said as she started to walk away, his voice hoarser than he'd intended. Sophie stopped, looked back.
"Oh, Nate," she murmured, seeing everything that was showing on Nate's face, stepping into his space and wrapping him up in her arms. "You brought him home. The rest will just take time."
Nate steeled himself and stepped away from Sophie's warmth, clearing his throat. "Let me know when it's done and they're out, get Hardison to take you home. I'll contact you as soon as he's ready for company." Nate glanced back at the car, and braced himself for battle.
-
Master Post