Fathers 5/8
Title: Fathers
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate/Eliot team!ficish, very slight ofc
Verse: BlackKing WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: "Found You." Two words bring back a nightmare buried twenty years in Eliot's past. As things fall apart the only way to put themselve back together may be to face who it was who made them who they are.
Notes: Sadly unbetaed due to time constraits. May post the betad version later if I get it and get a chance. EDIT: Now beta'd. More shinning stars for Als_Wonderland. Meanwhile I need to learn to be more patient. Go figure.
I'm about (in about two hours)to go on vacation for a little under two weeks. My acsess to the internet will be spotty at best and unless by some miricle our cruisline gets TNT I will be missing the first Episode of Season two of Leverage (though, thankfully, we get back just in time for the second). If anyone knows of a way for me to acsess the first episode when I get back (assuming the worst and they don't post it on TNT) I will be forever greatful (and will reward with fic or... somthing that I don't offer to anyone who wants to prompt me anyway... yeah).
On good news for the fandom however as of last night I have the rest of Fathers planed out, we have two more chapters and a epilouge to go. I will likely be working on the rest of Cell Number Eight whilst on my trip and trying to not wish my family was a little less interesting (and you know, a little more sane).
See you all in two weeks!
Warnings: Vauge and not so vauge implications of sexual abuse, angst, people without doctorates trying to discus the stuff in feilds they don't have doctorates in, symbolisim.
Chapter one, two, three, four
“Elie… Elie… Come on big brother. Open the door.” Joey’s voice, muffled by the bathroom door tried to coax him out, or at least let her in. Elie tried to steady his breathing, stop the sobs he knew she could hear, give her some kind of solid acknowledgement that he was okay. He needed to pull himself together. For her.
He pushed himself away from the toilet. He’d lost what little he’d managed to choke down at dinner, but his body felt as limp and he ended up flopping backwards. The cold tile against his body and the injuries That Man had left him stole a soft cry from him, his usual self control all but completely stripped away.
He turned onto his side and curled up into a ball.
He could hear Joey pounding on the bathroom door, calling his name as loudly as she dared.
He should tell her he was okay. He should tell her to be quiet before she woke That Man. He should let her in.
He should do a lot of things but right now he just… he just didn’t care.
He closed his eyes and curled tighter. Without clothes between him and the floor the cold seeped into him, numbing him. He felt hot blood crawl down his skin still leaking from…
He shuddered, re-living, seeing, smelling…
Hands touched his shoulder and he whipped his head around, flinching, barely stopping before he hit his little sister. The girl had come into the bathroom through the alternate door from his room.
Her eyes were wide, round, scared. She was only ten but she knew enough to realize, even if she mercifully didn’t truly understand, that something really bad had happened. Something that was worse than the beatings he routinely got.
She didn’t cry. Neither of them had cried in years. She just reached for him, finger tips just barely brushing his cheek like she was afraid he was going to fall apart. It was then he realize that he was wrong. She hadn’t cried in years. He’d been crying for awhile now.
He broke eye contact, scrubbing at his cheeks and trying desperately to pull himself back together. He just… he had to make this okay. He…
Joey sat next to him and carefully pulled him into a hug, her ten-year-old frame holding him like mama used to, the way that made you feel safe after a bad dream. Tentatively, almost awkwardly, like she wasn’t sure, she ran a hand through his hair and made soft soothing noises like he’d done when she was younger and would run to him for protection from bad dreams.
She was protecting him now.
He pulled away a little but she kept her hands on his shoulders, lightly, keeping contact. “No Elie.” She said softly, ducked and twisting her head until she could catch his eyes with hers. “Let me be the big brother for once.”
He took a sharp breath, dropping his eyes from hers only to see the blood, vomit, and things he couldn’t even identify now staining her clothes. She looked down and shrugged, brittle, broken smile on her face. “See, doesn't matter, I’m already as dirty as you.”
It would be a few more years before she would be able to understand why that one remark caused him to break down again. A few years to understand the full extent of the cruelty that had left a thirteen year old boy sobbing, naked and bleeding, on the bathroom floor or how he had warped and twisted in the years that followed.
But even as she held the brother that had never faltered, praying that she would be able to hold him together, she understood one thing: This was something she’d never be able to forget.
Something she prayed to god she would only have to do once.
Two months later she gave her last confession and never to set foot in a church again.
~*~
There was a long moment where no one moved, no one breathed, as the horror and shock wrapped around them.
When Sophie took a step forward, Eliot’s grip tightened around the boy and his posture changed, screaming a warning to anyone who’d seen him fight. Nate took half a step forward, eliciting the same reaction. Then Parker moved.
“Steady. Steady.” She whispered, her voice pitched strangely low and Nate almost wondered if she was imitating someone. Her eyes were locked on Eliot’s, her face showing only concentration and she moved with slow caution, her hands up just enough to keep them visible.
Eliot held his ground.
She crossed the barn floor, coming to stand in front of Eliot, and held out her arms almost like she wanted him to hand the boy over. Brief recognition crossed his face, his posture changing, and though something about his expression made it clear Parker *had* to be kidding him he relaxed his hold on the boy. Her head cocked to the side and she silently shrugged. “Fair point” was evident in the way she moved.
“Who are you? Where are you?” She asked. “Where did you go?”
He breathed deeply and let it out, relaxing one tiny bit at a time. He licked his lips and answered. “Eliot Spencer. The Picnic House…” He closed his eyes and opened them again. “And that’s where…”
“’ncle Elie?” The crying boy broke the moment and Eliot looked down at the boy. Horror and concern crossing his face once more.
“El?” He asked, his voice more gravely than normal but softer all the same. “Hey buddy, you okay?”
Parker turned back to the others with a look that clearly said “Get over here already, what are you waiting for?” In the back of his mind Nate wondered when they’d all become fluent in reading expressions that contained mostly variations of squints.
The next words the boy spoke eased away the horror just a little. “Yeah. I think so… He cut my hands.” The boy unclenched his fists to show jagged cuts on both the palms. “He… he still has Marie. I told him to let her go ‘cause” He swallowed hard, obviously trying to stop crying. “I’m her big brother an’ you an’ mama always say I have to protect her but he just cut my hands and rubbed the blood on my clothes and left me here.” He let his head drop to Eliot's chest, letting Eliot hold him.
The relief on Eliot face was almost painful to see. Nate didn’t know what game That Man had been playing at but the same sick feeling in his stomach that he’d had at the start of all this returned.
Sophie came forward, and took the boys hands gently to examine them, being the most soothing she could. “That’s alright, it's alright. We’ll get her back. But you need to be safe now. Did he say anything else to you or your sister?”
Intelligent blue eyes - far too like Eliot’s - blinked at her before looking to the others. “You’re ‘ncle Elie’s friends aren’t you? He told us about you.” He looked back to Sophie and something halfway between a laugh and a sob broke from his throat. “Marie always wanted to meet you all.” He turned back to Eliot and ducked his head against his chest, overwhelmed, no longer crying but looking very much like he wasn’t to far away from checking out for a long while.
Eliot looked down at the boy and then up at the others. He opened his mouth to say something, having as hard a time as the rest of them at figuring out something to say to this. Finally he said. “El said That Man told him to tell me he’d be in touch. We should go back to Joey. She could be in danger if she’s alone.”
No one said anything as they left the barn and got back into the van and drove home. El fell asleep almost the moment he was safely buckled in, nestled against Eliot.
Joey was waiting for them by the door. Taking in the sight of their grim faces and Eliot carrying her son she let out a strangled sob. Eliot shook his head. “No, Jo’. He’s alright. Just a couple cuts. No mess.”
“Marie?” She asked, opening the door to let them in.
“I… I’m sorry. He still has her.” Eliot looked down at the boy in his arms. “I think… I think she’ll be safer than…” He trailed off and Joey nodded and they both turned to head up the stairs like they barely even noticed the rest of the team. They probably didn’t. This whole experience, they were being taken back to a private hell.
A personal nightmare that allowed little room for everyone else.
There was silence. None of them … they needed to do something but they were all still processing.
Nate was the man with the plan though, so he had to do something. “Hardison. Set up, so you can trace any calls. Parker, do whatever you’d do to get ready, we might need you sneaking in somewhere. Sophie go see if Eliot or Josephine need help.”
They all nodded, grateful for direction, turning to do as told.
Nate went after Parker though, waiting until she’d gone out onto the back porch to call to her. “Parker.”
She turned giving him a confused look. “What?”
He caught up with her. “Back there?” He asked, trying to understand what had happened. Parker had the social skills and subtly of a sledge hammer. How she’d been the one to reach Eliot was a mystery. Considering they might need to reach him again in the near future he would like that mystery solved.
She turned away, climbing to perch on the porch railings. “He was having a flashback.” She said. “Reliving something that happened to him before.” She explained like she thought Nate might not understand. “It happens sometimes to abused kids. Other people to.” She added the later bit like an afterthought. “A long time ago one of my foster parents had a foster kid who’d come from a really bad place. She got flashbacks a lot and he’d help her wake up. I figured since I can only act when I imitate people I’d try what he did.” She looked over at Nate, giving a small Parker smile. “But the ‘steady steady’ was from when Eliot tried to teach me how to ride and I spooked the horse.”
Nate sighed, processing, feeling a slight pain in his chest when he had a feeling he knew exactly who the girl she was talking about was. This mess was dredging up more than just Eliot’s past.
He nodded and turned away, he had other things to do. “Hey Nate?” She called and he turned back. “You said we. Before. You said ‘we’re thieves’.” It took Nate a moment to remember what she meant, and another to admit it might have been a Freudian slip. She just smiled her Parker smile. “You admitted you’re a Black King. Now just admit you’re repelling with Eliot and things might go a little better.”
Without further explanation she stood on the rail and shimmied up onto the roof overhead. She peeked back over the lip, grinned a little and retreated further.
Nate stood on the porch for a little while, looking out over the yard, regrouping. He could almost hear the sound of giggling kids as they would have run around. A swing hung from the branch of a big oak tree - not too different than the one that once hung in his backyard.
He let out a breath.
It was all too much. Jobs with children being hurt were hard. Jobs with his team being hurt were hard. Memories were painful and this? He’d known for years that Eliot had been abused, that it had probably been worse than he’d ever admit to. But seeing it laid out like this? That shattered look on Eliot’s face when El might have been brutalized, the fact that it was just That Man toying with Eliot…
He really needed a drink.
He’d been better about that lately, but he really just needed a drink. He didn’t want to think about That Man, or the traumatized Phillips children, or that Eliot might not come back to them (him) from this, or how his own Father had run out just like Eliot's had and ended up committing suicide. Or that Hardison had become strangely jumpy when they’d driven close to the county line. A reason Nate could only guess had to be personal. Or that his suspicions about Parker's childhood had been almost confirmed. Or that Sophie knew about him and Eliot, and god knew what would happen next with that.
He wanted a drink.
Instead, he got Hardison ducking out the back door, looking for him. “Hey, Nate, we’re all set up and El’s asleep. Sophie’s trying to get Joey to rest. Eliot shut himself up in the guest bedroom and I think I saw Parker sneaking along on the roofs so she might be in there with him.”
Nate nodded, leaning back in the porch swing he’d found himself sitting in. He should be planning, but he felt exhausted right now, even more than he should be. It took him a moment to remember it was because he and Eliot had been up Very late the night before. Eliot had gotten into a bar fight after work, and come home with his blood pumping the way Nate should probably be worried about. Violence tended to get Eliot worked up.
He’d only gotten a couple hours sleep. It hadn’t mattered at the time. Eliot himself tended to only sleep two or three hours at a time, catnaps scattered throughout the day - the couch in Nate’s office was very comfortable for a reason.
Had it really been less than a day?
“You know, you really should pay more attention when I do my job.” Hardison’s tone of voice broke through his reverie. Nate had forgotten he was there.
“I mean really. How many times have you asked me to track someone via cell-phone and I carefully, in simple small non-techno babble words told you that I couldn’t *only* because they were turned off. Then you two decide you’re going to get a place together and try to keep it off the map but NEVER turn your phones off.”
Nate looked over at Hardison. It took a minute to realize what Hardison was getting at before Nate could start glaring. “You were tracking us?”
“No, but when I got a break on a case at four in the morning and I couldn’t get in touch with either of you...Your cell phones were on and I figured you might be in trouble, so I looked to see where you were. When you were in the same place I got worried. Right up to the point where I went there to try to see if you were being held hostage or something. I figured I could help, or you know, stand and watch as Eliot beat the shit out of everyone.”
Nate winced, imagining what Hardison might have found. “And…”
“Apparently the landlord’s daughter is as much of an insomniac as I am. Seriously, the girl was “doing her rounds” watering plants or something when she saw me in the hallway. I guess I kinda startled her. When she was helping me wash the pepper spray out of my eyes and apologizing for it, she found out I was looking for you and started complaining about how she wished more couples were like you two, and how these days the only nice men were gay.”
Nate winced, but was grateful at least Hardison hadn’t checked the video feeds or something.
“That not what I wanted to say though…” Hardison said with a sigh, going over to lean against the railings across from the porch swing.
“After I found out about The Black Knight, and stopped being pissed, I started doing research. I mean, I figured it was probably something that only happens when you live like we do, so there wouldn’t be much, but what could it hurt.” Hardison tapped his fingers against the rail, visibly agitated by his train of thought, not wanting to say what he was about to say. “I read something, didn’t think much of it, but after today, well. What if it isn’t some new thing, just a new version of something old?”
He turned, facing Nate, sitting perched on the railing of the porch. “Dissociative Identity Disorder. What most would call split personalities. I mean, I think we’re missing the big one, cause other than the fact he’s mildly less scary in normal life than he is in a fight, there’s no real second personality…” Hardison trailed off. “I mean he has some symptoms but we’re talking about things that are normal for all of us.” Hardison was strangely still now and Nate almost had to wonder at the change to their youngest teammate. “I kept reading though and a couple other things I saw made just as much sense. I didn’t have much to go on but… with all this...” He let out a long slow sigh, looking at his hands.
Nate looked up at the ceiling above them, a hand scrubbing down his face. “Nearly all of those diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder reported long-term abuse by a family member or someone they trusted. Most often the abuse was sexual in nature.” There was a short, pained pause before he continued, refusing to even consider the implications right now. “The disorder begins as a coping mechanism. The child compartmentalizes, pretends it happened to someone else, even force themselves to forget. The abuse happens again and the pattern continues until a separate identity forms.” He met Hardison’s eyes, a small bitter grin hinting across his face. “I’ve been trying to figure this out for nearly ten years.”
Hardison nods looking down. “Got any theories?”
Nate looked out over the lawn again. “There were pieces I didn’t have until now.” Or didn’t want to consider. “You?”
Hardison shrugged and muttered something. After a moment he said it louder. “It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not like one day you’ve got healthy kid and the next you’ve got two kids in the same skull. What if… what if he got out before the second one was a complete kid? If instead of a second personality he’s just been instinctively doing what he did before and...just checking out? Only with all the violence, once he’s checked out, he lashes out?”
Nate stared into space. “Every time I’ve seen him go… he’s either been badly hurt or he’s seen someone been badly beaten…” His voice trailed off, remembering Parker's words. “Flashbacks… it triggers a flashback which triggers him to white out… that’s why it hurts him not to let it go, he’s stuck in the flashback…” He looked toward Hardison who gave a apologetic shrug. Nate was reminded of back on that damn plane, when Hardison reminded him his knowledge of unknown fields was limited to what he could pull off the internet.
Neither of them were psychologists. “It doesn’t matter.” Nate said, standing. “We’ve got the best at what we do on this team, but we’re not doctors. Trying to give it a name won’t help us deal with it.”
Hardison shook his head, disagreeing. “It’s good news. I mean, if I’m right, then things are good.” Nate turned, giving Hardison a look that seemed to adequately remind Hardison just how not good things were right now. “Right, they’re bad right now, really bad. But Nate? If it’s this… if it’s got a treatment? They say with treatment most people get better. I know you said it was getting worse, and this won’t help at all, but it might not be some bat-shit crazy mental disorder you only get after your personal kill list starts to get to four digits. It might have a name, and some way to make it better, not just make it go away for awhile.”
Somehow, Nate actually smiles at this a little, realizing what Hardison means. There is something to be said for knowing your enemy. “There’s one major flaw to your plan.” Nate remarked, a tiny hint of humor on his voice. “I’m relatively sure any treatment would mean therapy. Getting Eliot to go to therapy…that’s something I don’t see happening.”
Hardison almost laughed, a grin on his face. It eased something inside a little. Even after all they’d found out, after all the painful bits of Eliot’s past they’d been dragged through, he was still their Eliot, and the image of Eliot on a psychiatrist's couch talking about his feelings was still ridiculous.
Nate was continuing his aborted exit when Hardison stopped him one more time with a soft voice. “He’d go if you asked him you know.” Nate turned back, confused. Hardison continued. “He’d complain, and mumble, and threaten to punch someone but he’d go. Probably wouldn’t even piss off the doctor too much, well, intentionally at least.” He shook his head, disbelieving smile on his face as he watched Nate. “You don’t get it do you? Eliot’s not the type that say a lot, he lets what he does do the talking.”
Nate swallowed, his heart pounding a little more than he’d like. “What does he say?”
Hardison shrugged. “I’m a talker and I don’t know him as well as you do. But think of it this way. Who's the only member of the team who's never gone off the reservation? He complains and gets annoyed, but he does what you tell him and never asks why, even off the job.”
A memory jostled it’s way through Nate’s brain. That jury job, back when everyone thought Parker was just being Parker. Nate had told Eliot to go with her to check something. Nate hadn’t even specified , and after realizing Nate meant *now* Eliot had gone. He didn’t ask why, or what, until he had needed to know so that he could do his job.
Hardison’s voice broke through Nate's memory. “That’s not just doing his job… that’s trust and loyalty in quantities I didn’t even know someone in our line could have.”
Nate nodded, muttering something… maybe thanks… and turned away. He’d reached the door when he turned back one last time. “What about the horse job?” He said, mentioning the one time he could think of that Eliot had gone off the reservation.
The door opened without Nate’s help and the man in question stepped onto the porch. “That was for family.” Eliot said. He looked and sounded almost steady, still a little bit off though, resigned…
Afraid.
“Who did ya think Aim’s was?” Parker said following Eliot out the door.
Nate smiled bitterly. Ames… Aimee Martin. The Martin family, who’d helped Eliot survive as a child. They’d come first, especially since Nate and Eliot's own relationship had been in it’s infancy.
Sophie came to stand in the doorway behind Parker.
Parker went to sit next to Hardison.
Eliot caught the edge of the door, keeping it from shutting and holding it open. Sophie sighed and stepped out onto the porch to join them. “So what do we do now?”
Previous: Chapter Four
Next: Chapter Six
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate/Eliot team!ficish, very slight ofc
Verse: BlackKing WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: "Found You." Two words bring back a nightmare buried twenty years in Eliot's past. As things fall apart the only way to put themselve back together may be to face who it was who made them who they are.
Notes: Sadly unbetaed due to time constraits. May post the betad version later if I get it and get a chance. EDIT: Now beta'd. More shinning stars for Als_Wonderland. Meanwhile I need to learn to be more patient. Go figure.
I'm about (in about two hours)to go on vacation for a little under two weeks. My acsess to the internet will be spotty at best and unless by some miricle our cruisline gets TNT I will be missing the first Episode of Season two of Leverage (though, thankfully, we get back just in time for the second). If anyone knows of a way for me to acsess the first episode when I get back (assuming the worst and they don't post it on TNT) I will be forever greatful (and will reward with fic or... somthing that I don't offer to anyone who wants to prompt me anyway... yeah).
On good news for the fandom however as of last night I have the rest of Fathers planed out, we have two more chapters and a epilouge to go. I will likely be working on the rest of Cell Number Eight whilst on my trip and trying to not wish my family was a little less interesting (and you know, a little more sane).
See you all in two weeks!
Warnings: Vauge and not so vauge implications of sexual abuse, angst, people without doctorates trying to discus the stuff in feilds they don't have doctorates in, symbolisim.
Chapter one, two, three, four
“Elie… Elie… Come on big brother. Open the door.” Joey’s voice, muffled by the bathroom door tried to coax him out, or at least let her in. Elie tried to steady his breathing, stop the sobs he knew she could hear, give her some kind of solid acknowledgement that he was okay. He needed to pull himself together. For her.
He pushed himself away from the toilet. He’d lost what little he’d managed to choke down at dinner, but his body felt as limp and he ended up flopping backwards. The cold tile against his body and the injuries That Man had left him stole a soft cry from him, his usual self control all but completely stripped away.
He turned onto his side and curled up into a ball.
He could hear Joey pounding on the bathroom door, calling his name as loudly as she dared.
He should tell her he was okay. He should tell her to be quiet before she woke That Man. He should let her in.
He should do a lot of things but right now he just… he just didn’t care.
He closed his eyes and curled tighter. Without clothes between him and the floor the cold seeped into him, numbing him. He felt hot blood crawl down his skin still leaking from…
He shuddered, re-living, seeing, smelling…
Hands touched his shoulder and he whipped his head around, flinching, barely stopping before he hit his little sister. The girl had come into the bathroom through the alternate door from his room.
Her eyes were wide, round, scared. She was only ten but she knew enough to realize, even if she mercifully didn’t truly understand, that something really bad had happened. Something that was worse than the beatings he routinely got.
She didn’t cry. Neither of them had cried in years. She just reached for him, finger tips just barely brushing his cheek like she was afraid he was going to fall apart. It was then he realize that he was wrong. She hadn’t cried in years. He’d been crying for awhile now.
He broke eye contact, scrubbing at his cheeks and trying desperately to pull himself back together. He just… he had to make this okay. He…
Joey sat next to him and carefully pulled him into a hug, her ten-year-old frame holding him like mama used to, the way that made you feel safe after a bad dream. Tentatively, almost awkwardly, like she wasn’t sure, she ran a hand through his hair and made soft soothing noises like he’d done when she was younger and would run to him for protection from bad dreams.
She was protecting him now.
He pulled away a little but she kept her hands on his shoulders, lightly, keeping contact. “No Elie.” She said softly, ducked and twisting her head until she could catch his eyes with hers. “Let me be the big brother for once.”
He took a sharp breath, dropping his eyes from hers only to see the blood, vomit, and things he couldn’t even identify now staining her clothes. She looked down and shrugged, brittle, broken smile on her face. “See, doesn't matter, I’m already as dirty as you.”
It would be a few more years before she would be able to understand why that one remark caused him to break down again. A few years to understand the full extent of the cruelty that had left a thirteen year old boy sobbing, naked and bleeding, on the bathroom floor or how he had warped and twisted in the years that followed.
But even as she held the brother that had never faltered, praying that she would be able to hold him together, she understood one thing: This was something she’d never be able to forget.
Something she prayed to god she would only have to do once.
Two months later she gave her last confession and never to set foot in a church again.
~*~
There was a long moment where no one moved, no one breathed, as the horror and shock wrapped around them.
When Sophie took a step forward, Eliot’s grip tightened around the boy and his posture changed, screaming a warning to anyone who’d seen him fight. Nate took half a step forward, eliciting the same reaction. Then Parker moved.
“Steady. Steady.” She whispered, her voice pitched strangely low and Nate almost wondered if she was imitating someone. Her eyes were locked on Eliot’s, her face showing only concentration and she moved with slow caution, her hands up just enough to keep them visible.
Eliot held his ground.
She crossed the barn floor, coming to stand in front of Eliot, and held out her arms almost like she wanted him to hand the boy over. Brief recognition crossed his face, his posture changing, and though something about his expression made it clear Parker *had* to be kidding him he relaxed his hold on the boy. Her head cocked to the side and she silently shrugged. “Fair point” was evident in the way she moved.
“Who are you? Where are you?” She asked. “Where did you go?”
He breathed deeply and let it out, relaxing one tiny bit at a time. He licked his lips and answered. “Eliot Spencer. The Picnic House…” He closed his eyes and opened them again. “And that’s where…”
“’ncle Elie?” The crying boy broke the moment and Eliot looked down at the boy. Horror and concern crossing his face once more.
“El?” He asked, his voice more gravely than normal but softer all the same. “Hey buddy, you okay?”
Parker turned back to the others with a look that clearly said “Get over here already, what are you waiting for?” In the back of his mind Nate wondered when they’d all become fluent in reading expressions that contained mostly variations of squints.
The next words the boy spoke eased away the horror just a little. “Yeah. I think so… He cut my hands.” The boy unclenched his fists to show jagged cuts on both the palms. “He… he still has Marie. I told him to let her go ‘cause” He swallowed hard, obviously trying to stop crying. “I’m her big brother an’ you an’ mama always say I have to protect her but he just cut my hands and rubbed the blood on my clothes and left me here.” He let his head drop to Eliot's chest, letting Eliot hold him.
The relief on Eliot face was almost painful to see. Nate didn’t know what game That Man had been playing at but the same sick feeling in his stomach that he’d had at the start of all this returned.
Sophie came forward, and took the boys hands gently to examine them, being the most soothing she could. “That’s alright, it's alright. We’ll get her back. But you need to be safe now. Did he say anything else to you or your sister?”
Intelligent blue eyes - far too like Eliot’s - blinked at her before looking to the others. “You’re ‘ncle Elie’s friends aren’t you? He told us about you.” He looked back to Sophie and something halfway between a laugh and a sob broke from his throat. “Marie always wanted to meet you all.” He turned back to Eliot and ducked his head against his chest, overwhelmed, no longer crying but looking very much like he wasn’t to far away from checking out for a long while.
Eliot looked down at the boy and then up at the others. He opened his mouth to say something, having as hard a time as the rest of them at figuring out something to say to this. Finally he said. “El said That Man told him to tell me he’d be in touch. We should go back to Joey. She could be in danger if she’s alone.”
No one said anything as they left the barn and got back into the van and drove home. El fell asleep almost the moment he was safely buckled in, nestled against Eliot.
Joey was waiting for them by the door. Taking in the sight of their grim faces and Eliot carrying her son she let out a strangled sob. Eliot shook his head. “No, Jo’. He’s alright. Just a couple cuts. No mess.”
“Marie?” She asked, opening the door to let them in.
“I… I’m sorry. He still has her.” Eliot looked down at the boy in his arms. “I think… I think she’ll be safer than…” He trailed off and Joey nodded and they both turned to head up the stairs like they barely even noticed the rest of the team. They probably didn’t. This whole experience, they were being taken back to a private hell.
A personal nightmare that allowed little room for everyone else.
There was silence. None of them … they needed to do something but they were all still processing.
Nate was the man with the plan though, so he had to do something. “Hardison. Set up, so you can trace any calls. Parker, do whatever you’d do to get ready, we might need you sneaking in somewhere. Sophie go see if Eliot or Josephine need help.”
They all nodded, grateful for direction, turning to do as told.
Nate went after Parker though, waiting until she’d gone out onto the back porch to call to her. “Parker.”
She turned giving him a confused look. “What?”
He caught up with her. “Back there?” He asked, trying to understand what had happened. Parker had the social skills and subtly of a sledge hammer. How she’d been the one to reach Eliot was a mystery. Considering they might need to reach him again in the near future he would like that mystery solved.
She turned away, climbing to perch on the porch railings. “He was having a flashback.” She said. “Reliving something that happened to him before.” She explained like she thought Nate might not understand. “It happens sometimes to abused kids. Other people to.” She added the later bit like an afterthought. “A long time ago one of my foster parents had a foster kid who’d come from a really bad place. She got flashbacks a lot and he’d help her wake up. I figured since I can only act when I imitate people I’d try what he did.” She looked over at Nate, giving a small Parker smile. “But the ‘steady steady’ was from when Eliot tried to teach me how to ride and I spooked the horse.”
Nate sighed, processing, feeling a slight pain in his chest when he had a feeling he knew exactly who the girl she was talking about was. This mess was dredging up more than just Eliot’s past.
He nodded and turned away, he had other things to do. “Hey Nate?” She called and he turned back. “You said we. Before. You said ‘we’re thieves’.” It took Nate a moment to remember what she meant, and another to admit it might have been a Freudian slip. She just smiled her Parker smile. “You admitted you’re a Black King. Now just admit you’re repelling with Eliot and things might go a little better.”
Without further explanation she stood on the rail and shimmied up onto the roof overhead. She peeked back over the lip, grinned a little and retreated further.
Nate stood on the porch for a little while, looking out over the yard, regrouping. He could almost hear the sound of giggling kids as they would have run around. A swing hung from the branch of a big oak tree - not too different than the one that once hung in his backyard.
He let out a breath.
It was all too much. Jobs with children being hurt were hard. Jobs with his team being hurt were hard. Memories were painful and this? He’d known for years that Eliot had been abused, that it had probably been worse than he’d ever admit to. But seeing it laid out like this? That shattered look on Eliot’s face when El might have been brutalized, the fact that it was just That Man toying with Eliot…
He really needed a drink.
He’d been better about that lately, but he really just needed a drink. He didn’t want to think about That Man, or the traumatized Phillips children, or that Eliot might not come back to them (him) from this, or how his own Father had run out just like Eliot's had and ended up committing suicide. Or that Hardison had become strangely jumpy when they’d driven close to the county line. A reason Nate could only guess had to be personal. Or that his suspicions about Parker's childhood had been almost confirmed. Or that Sophie knew about him and Eliot, and god knew what would happen next with that.
He wanted a drink.
Instead, he got Hardison ducking out the back door, looking for him. “Hey, Nate, we’re all set up and El’s asleep. Sophie’s trying to get Joey to rest. Eliot shut himself up in the guest bedroom and I think I saw Parker sneaking along on the roofs so she might be in there with him.”
Nate nodded, leaning back in the porch swing he’d found himself sitting in. He should be planning, but he felt exhausted right now, even more than he should be. It took him a moment to remember it was because he and Eliot had been up Very late the night before. Eliot had gotten into a bar fight after work, and come home with his blood pumping the way Nate should probably be worried about. Violence tended to get Eliot worked up.
He’d only gotten a couple hours sleep. It hadn’t mattered at the time. Eliot himself tended to only sleep two or three hours at a time, catnaps scattered throughout the day - the couch in Nate’s office was very comfortable for a reason.
Had it really been less than a day?
“You know, you really should pay more attention when I do my job.” Hardison’s tone of voice broke through his reverie. Nate had forgotten he was there.
“I mean really. How many times have you asked me to track someone via cell-phone and I carefully, in simple small non-techno babble words told you that I couldn’t *only* because they were turned off. Then you two decide you’re going to get a place together and try to keep it off the map but NEVER turn your phones off.”
Nate looked over at Hardison. It took a minute to realize what Hardison was getting at before Nate could start glaring. “You were tracking us?”
“No, but when I got a break on a case at four in the morning and I couldn’t get in touch with either of you...Your cell phones were on and I figured you might be in trouble, so I looked to see where you were. When you were in the same place I got worried. Right up to the point where I went there to try to see if you were being held hostage or something. I figured I could help, or you know, stand and watch as Eliot beat the shit out of everyone.”
Nate winced, imagining what Hardison might have found. “And…”
“Apparently the landlord’s daughter is as much of an insomniac as I am. Seriously, the girl was “doing her rounds” watering plants or something when she saw me in the hallway. I guess I kinda startled her. When she was helping me wash the pepper spray out of my eyes and apologizing for it, she found out I was looking for you and started complaining about how she wished more couples were like you two, and how these days the only nice men were gay.”
Nate winced, but was grateful at least Hardison hadn’t checked the video feeds or something.
“That not what I wanted to say though…” Hardison said with a sigh, going over to lean against the railings across from the porch swing.
“After I found out about The Black Knight, and stopped being pissed, I started doing research. I mean, I figured it was probably something that only happens when you live like we do, so there wouldn’t be much, but what could it hurt.” Hardison tapped his fingers against the rail, visibly agitated by his train of thought, not wanting to say what he was about to say. “I read something, didn’t think much of it, but after today, well. What if it isn’t some new thing, just a new version of something old?”
He turned, facing Nate, sitting perched on the railing of the porch. “Dissociative Identity Disorder. What most would call split personalities. I mean, I think we’re missing the big one, cause other than the fact he’s mildly less scary in normal life than he is in a fight, there’s no real second personality…” Hardison trailed off. “I mean he has some symptoms but we’re talking about things that are normal for all of us.” Hardison was strangely still now and Nate almost had to wonder at the change to their youngest teammate. “I kept reading though and a couple other things I saw made just as much sense. I didn’t have much to go on but… with all this...” He let out a long slow sigh, looking at his hands.
Nate looked up at the ceiling above them, a hand scrubbing down his face. “Nearly all of those diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder reported long-term abuse by a family member or someone they trusted. Most often the abuse was sexual in nature.” There was a short, pained pause before he continued, refusing to even consider the implications right now. “The disorder begins as a coping mechanism. The child compartmentalizes, pretends it happened to someone else, even force themselves to forget. The abuse happens again and the pattern continues until a separate identity forms.” He met Hardison’s eyes, a small bitter grin hinting across his face. “I’ve been trying to figure this out for nearly ten years.”
Hardison nods looking down. “Got any theories?”
Nate looked out over the lawn again. “There were pieces I didn’t have until now.” Or didn’t want to consider. “You?”
Hardison shrugged and muttered something. After a moment he said it louder. “It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not like one day you’ve got healthy kid and the next you’ve got two kids in the same skull. What if… what if he got out before the second one was a complete kid? If instead of a second personality he’s just been instinctively doing what he did before and...just checking out? Only with all the violence, once he’s checked out, he lashes out?”
Nate stared into space. “Every time I’ve seen him go… he’s either been badly hurt or he’s seen someone been badly beaten…” His voice trailed off, remembering Parker's words. “Flashbacks… it triggers a flashback which triggers him to white out… that’s why it hurts him not to let it go, he’s stuck in the flashback…” He looked toward Hardison who gave a apologetic shrug. Nate was reminded of back on that damn plane, when Hardison reminded him his knowledge of unknown fields was limited to what he could pull off the internet.
Neither of them were psychologists. “It doesn’t matter.” Nate said, standing. “We’ve got the best at what we do on this team, but we’re not doctors. Trying to give it a name won’t help us deal with it.”
Hardison shook his head, disagreeing. “It’s good news. I mean, if I’m right, then things are good.” Nate turned, giving Hardison a look that seemed to adequately remind Hardison just how not good things were right now. “Right, they’re bad right now, really bad. But Nate? If it’s this… if it’s got a treatment? They say with treatment most people get better. I know you said it was getting worse, and this won’t help at all, but it might not be some bat-shit crazy mental disorder you only get after your personal kill list starts to get to four digits. It might have a name, and some way to make it better, not just make it go away for awhile.”
Somehow, Nate actually smiles at this a little, realizing what Hardison means. There is something to be said for knowing your enemy. “There’s one major flaw to your plan.” Nate remarked, a tiny hint of humor on his voice. “I’m relatively sure any treatment would mean therapy. Getting Eliot to go to therapy…that’s something I don’t see happening.”
Hardison almost laughed, a grin on his face. It eased something inside a little. Even after all they’d found out, after all the painful bits of Eliot’s past they’d been dragged through, he was still their Eliot, and the image of Eliot on a psychiatrist's couch talking about his feelings was still ridiculous.
Nate was continuing his aborted exit when Hardison stopped him one more time with a soft voice. “He’d go if you asked him you know.” Nate turned back, confused. Hardison continued. “He’d complain, and mumble, and threaten to punch someone but he’d go. Probably wouldn’t even piss off the doctor too much, well, intentionally at least.” He shook his head, disbelieving smile on his face as he watched Nate. “You don’t get it do you? Eliot’s not the type that say a lot, he lets what he does do the talking.”
Nate swallowed, his heart pounding a little more than he’d like. “What does he say?”
Hardison shrugged. “I’m a talker and I don’t know him as well as you do. But think of it this way. Who's the only member of the team who's never gone off the reservation? He complains and gets annoyed, but he does what you tell him and never asks why, even off the job.”
A memory jostled it’s way through Nate’s brain. That jury job, back when everyone thought Parker was just being Parker. Nate had told Eliot to go with her to check something. Nate hadn’t even specified , and after realizing Nate meant *now* Eliot had gone. He didn’t ask why, or what, until he had needed to know so that he could do his job.
Hardison’s voice broke through Nate's memory. “That’s not just doing his job… that’s trust and loyalty in quantities I didn’t even know someone in our line could have.”
Nate nodded, muttering something… maybe thanks… and turned away. He’d reached the door when he turned back one last time. “What about the horse job?” He said, mentioning the one time he could think of that Eliot had gone off the reservation.
The door opened without Nate’s help and the man in question stepped onto the porch. “That was for family.” Eliot said. He looked and sounded almost steady, still a little bit off though, resigned…
Afraid.
“Who did ya think Aim’s was?” Parker said following Eliot out the door.
Nate smiled bitterly. Ames… Aimee Martin. The Martin family, who’d helped Eliot survive as a child. They’d come first, especially since Nate and Eliot's own relationship had been in it’s infancy.
Sophie came to stand in the doorway behind Parker.
Parker went to sit next to Hardison.
Eliot caught the edge of the door, keeping it from shutting and holding it open. Sophie sighed and stepped out onto the porch to join them. “So what do we do now?”
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Next: Chapter Six