What Still Remains
Title: What Still Remains
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sophie, team, hints of Dean/Eliot, pre Nate/Sophie
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: Leverage, Firefly, Supernatural
Summary: She'd thought this would happen after he was gone.
Notes: For the depression square on my hurt/comfort bingo card.
Takes place after Bittersweet and around the time of The Stork Job.
There were five stages of grief.
Sophie knew this. She’d studied them with the same depth she’d studied to rest of human behavior and psychology, though that specific aspect had been while she was still a companion.
She’d sat in a hall filled with soft golden firelight as their teacher had spoken of the processes gone through to grieve. Her hands had painted shadows and words had crafted images of deep despair that touched Sophia and her classmates.
By then they’d been used to getting lost in lectures. The best were set to teach, and the best were masters of words.
There were five stages of grief, though not everyone passed through them all or in order.
Sophie had supposed they would come after Eliot’s death but in the first few days following that first sign that his body was failing him she realized they’d all began those stages months ago and were only now passing from denial into whatever came next.
She saw anger in Nate, as he poured over their client files with new obsession and reworked the plan for their next job again and again. Later she’d wonder if their original plan would have left such a wake of utter destruction or if Nate would have been so harsh with Parker after her actions to save the orphans.
She knew he was drinking more than ever.
With the rest of the team, though, it wasn’t anger. Not yet. Anger would come later, when they ran out of new roads or when Eliot was gone.
No for them it was bargaining that came next.
Hardison could be found on the cortex at all hours, rushing through the work he’d been given the better to continue his renewed search for some non-alliance controlled doctor who might be able to help or some new medicine or procedure that could work. The only times he could be dragged away was for meals, the nightly reading, or when Eliot came to tell him he and Parker were going to bed.
Sam too could often be found up on the bridge, talking to old contacts, reaching out when it was safe, searching for an answer and keeping careful monitor of Leverage.
In all her experience Sophie had never known a smoother ride than those few weeks.
Dean and Parker in turn kept close to Eliot, passing him between them for rounds of training of mischief to cheer him up, one of them always just far enough away to give him room when he needed the time alone Eliot thrived on.
It was partly worry, Sophie knew. Eliot had been talking to Dean the last time he passed out and Parker’s whole world had been stolen from her in barely more than an instant. Neither of them could quite make themselves let him out of their sight without knowing that someone…
But Sophie could see it, in the way Eliot let his head back and laughed at Parker’s antics with his whole self, in the quiet moments she’d stumbled across in her restless pacing between him and Dean…
They’d convinced themselves that as long as one of them was with Eliot they could tether him to this life and in those moments Sophie could see it working. They were there, always there, a constant reminder to Eliot that it was worth whatever fight he wasn’t letting them see.
Funny, he was the one dying but he seemed to have moved through to acceptance long before they met one another.
Eliot and Dean finished sparring in the cargo hold down below, the look that had passed between them in that moment they were catching their breath let Sophie know as they disappeared together back down the hallway they’d gotten over the issues left behind by the Burke job.
She let out a sigh, leaning heavier on the railing, letting go of the careful hold on her emotions to keep herself hidden from Eliot and to keep him from sensing her?
Her what? Where was she on all of this? She wasn’t angry, but not still in denial, not trying to fix things but not ready to let him go.
They hadn’t gotten close, her and Eliot. They were crew and she knew she held the place of matron to the clan the former agents had pulled together, and Eliot saw that side of her.
But there was a distance between them, still. There was the ever present boundary of her keeping her guards and barriers up around him to prevent him from reading her and him correctly seeing that as a sign of lack of trust. He was also a fighter, she a companion, and their worlds were just so very vastly different. Set in their ways as they were sometimes she feared they’d never find some halfway point.
Considering how little time there was left to do so…
“Brooding alone’s not for the beginner to attempt.” A voice said from the doorway to the lounge off the catwalks. She heard Nate walk over and lean against the railing.
She tensed, trying to pull herself back together, the mask of the companion so easy to don.
But when she looked up, a comment about how he was one to talk rising in her throat, he was just looking at her. His eyes looked tired, signs of lost sleep and exhaustion and worry. He was angry but maybe…
She let out a breath, using everything she had to keep from crumpling. She’d spent her whole life looking for something she’d never even been able to name and just as she thought she’d found it…
She took in a slightly ragged breath and turned away, leaning against the railing, slamming her defenses back into place. She had to keep it together. She was exhausted and hurting and didn’t know how to begin to fix this and she’d been like this for weeks now but she had to keep it together.
The show must go on.
Nate didn’t leave though. Not like last time. He turned with her to lean on the railing, his shoulder brushing against her, and he stayed there.
Together they stared into the empty air between them and the metal floor and the black beyond and something inside her eased just the tiniest of bits.
They were losing him, but once Eliot was gone they would still have each other.
For a few moments she let go of the push and pull of tension between them and leaned her head on Nate’s shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her waist and they held onto the thought of not what would soon be lost but what they’d do everything they could to keep.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sophie, team, hints of Dean/Eliot, pre Nate/Sophie
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: Leverage, Firefly, Supernatural
Summary: She'd thought this would happen after he was gone.
Notes: For the depression square on my hurt/comfort bingo card.
Takes place after Bittersweet and around the time of The Stork Job.
There were five stages of grief.
Sophie knew this. She’d studied them with the same depth she’d studied to rest of human behavior and psychology, though that specific aspect had been while she was still a companion.
She’d sat in a hall filled with soft golden firelight as their teacher had spoken of the processes gone through to grieve. Her hands had painted shadows and words had crafted images of deep despair that touched Sophia and her classmates.
By then they’d been used to getting lost in lectures. The best were set to teach, and the best were masters of words.
There were five stages of grief, though not everyone passed through them all or in order.
Sophie had supposed they would come after Eliot’s death but in the first few days following that first sign that his body was failing him she realized they’d all began those stages months ago and were only now passing from denial into whatever came next.
She saw anger in Nate, as he poured over their client files with new obsession and reworked the plan for their next job again and again. Later she’d wonder if their original plan would have left such a wake of utter destruction or if Nate would have been so harsh with Parker after her actions to save the orphans.
She knew he was drinking more than ever.
With the rest of the team, though, it wasn’t anger. Not yet. Anger would come later, when they ran out of new roads or when Eliot was gone.
No for them it was bargaining that came next.
Hardison could be found on the cortex at all hours, rushing through the work he’d been given the better to continue his renewed search for some non-alliance controlled doctor who might be able to help or some new medicine or procedure that could work. The only times he could be dragged away was for meals, the nightly reading, or when Eliot came to tell him he and Parker were going to bed.
Sam too could often be found up on the bridge, talking to old contacts, reaching out when it was safe, searching for an answer and keeping careful monitor of Leverage.
In all her experience Sophie had never known a smoother ride than those few weeks.
Dean and Parker in turn kept close to Eliot, passing him between them for rounds of training of mischief to cheer him up, one of them always just far enough away to give him room when he needed the time alone Eliot thrived on.
It was partly worry, Sophie knew. Eliot had been talking to Dean the last time he passed out and Parker’s whole world had been stolen from her in barely more than an instant. Neither of them could quite make themselves let him out of their sight without knowing that someone…
But Sophie could see it, in the way Eliot let his head back and laughed at Parker’s antics with his whole self, in the quiet moments she’d stumbled across in her restless pacing between him and Dean…
They’d convinced themselves that as long as one of them was with Eliot they could tether him to this life and in those moments Sophie could see it working. They were there, always there, a constant reminder to Eliot that it was worth whatever fight he wasn’t letting them see.
Funny, he was the one dying but he seemed to have moved through to acceptance long before they met one another.
Eliot and Dean finished sparring in the cargo hold down below, the look that had passed between them in that moment they were catching their breath let Sophie know as they disappeared together back down the hallway they’d gotten over the issues left behind by the Burke job.
She let out a sigh, leaning heavier on the railing, letting go of the careful hold on her emotions to keep herself hidden from Eliot and to keep him from sensing her?
Her what? Where was she on all of this? She wasn’t angry, but not still in denial, not trying to fix things but not ready to let him go.
They hadn’t gotten close, her and Eliot. They were crew and she knew she held the place of matron to the clan the former agents had pulled together, and Eliot saw that side of her.
But there was a distance between them, still. There was the ever present boundary of her keeping her guards and barriers up around him to prevent him from reading her and him correctly seeing that as a sign of lack of trust. He was also a fighter, she a companion, and their worlds were just so very vastly different. Set in their ways as they were sometimes she feared they’d never find some halfway point.
Considering how little time there was left to do so…
“Brooding alone’s not for the beginner to attempt.” A voice said from the doorway to the lounge off the catwalks. She heard Nate walk over and lean against the railing.
She tensed, trying to pull herself back together, the mask of the companion so easy to don.
But when she looked up, a comment about how he was one to talk rising in her throat, he was just looking at her. His eyes looked tired, signs of lost sleep and exhaustion and worry. He was angry but maybe…
She let out a breath, using everything she had to keep from crumpling. She’d spent her whole life looking for something she’d never even been able to name and just as she thought she’d found it…
She took in a slightly ragged breath and turned away, leaning against the railing, slamming her defenses back into place. She had to keep it together. She was exhausted and hurting and didn’t know how to begin to fix this and she’d been like this for weeks now but she had to keep it together.
The show must go on.
Nate didn’t leave though. Not like last time. He turned with her to lean on the railing, his shoulder brushing against her, and he stayed there.
Together they stared into the empty air between them and the metal floor and the black beyond and something inside her eased just the tiniest of bits.
They were losing him, but once Eliot was gone they would still have each other.
For a few moments she let go of the push and pull of tension between them and leaned her head on Nate’s shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her waist and they held onto the thought of not what would soon be lost but what they’d do everything they could to keep.