No Fearsome Tide: Before 5/5
For warnings and notes see masterpost here
no fearsome tide: part five
Before
There’s a divide, in all of their minds, between the present, and Before.
Before, they all lived in buildings, with windows and kitchens and bathrooms. Before, money had been a necessity. Before, there had been lines, rules that people followed because they were somehow important, even though they really weren’t.
Every so often, they’ll talk about Before. Once, they talked about the immediate Before. When they’d been wary but disbelieving, so secure in the world that was. They each remember it a little differently.
Garcia remembers how it was for the BAU, how distant the danger had been for them, even though it really hadn’t been.
Penelope Garcia chewed nervously on the end of her pen, staring at the television screen mounted on the wall behind her computer screens. She’d avoided the main bullpen, knowing from experience that if they had the news on Spencer would be in full statistics mode.
There were times when Spencer’s knowledge could be useful, even reassuring, but this wasn’t one of them. Garcia was willing to admit that she had probably watched one too many apocalyptic dramas over the years, a good few of which had involved volcanoes causing the end of the world, but over the past year she had started to wonder if maybe, they weren’t as unrealistic as Spencer liked to say they were.
Spencer could, after all, list the effects of every recorded major volcanic eruption, many of which hadn’t exactly uplifting. So he couldn’t exactly argue that volcanoes weren’t dangerous, that they didn’t kill people and destroy whole towns.
Garcia jumped as one of her computers beeped, new text flashing up on the screen. Garcia smiled, abandoning the pen to free up her hands to type.
@blueangel rewatching #firesofpompeii and taking bets on when ppl start turning to stone and seeing the future in RL
@tankgirl @blueangel if that happens RTD could sue the world
@blueangel @tankgirl good luck to him in ‘this economic climate’ - how goes the gmen?
@tankgirl @blueangel I could not possibly tell you that, being who you are
@blueangel @tankgirl ;p my day job is miles from your day job, no way are your babies interested in me
Garcia grinned, feeling her dark feeling lift, just a little. She’d known Alec Hardison for years, though she was careful to make sure no one knew that. The hacker’s code and all that. He was a good friend, and she was happy to stay ignorant of just what he got up to, he’d always played in a different area than her, which was one of the reasons only the white collar division was interested in getting a hold of him. He was however, still in her league, right up the top of the list, but the FBI, CIA and NSA had just never managed to get their hands on him.
She tapped her fingers on her desk idly, trying to decide how to answer, or whether to just deflect back to the original subject. She didn’t have much other work to do; it had been a relatively easy week for the BAU, taken up by desk consultations and paper work catch up, so she could afford to spend some time tweeting at her peeps.
@tankgirl @blueangel which epi are you watching next?
@blueangel @tankgirl time, and coworkers, seem to be conspiring to interrupt my DW time ;(
@tankgirl @blueangel awww poor baby, such a shame
@blueangel @tankgirl working for a living is such hard work ;)
Garcia laughed, trying to imagine Hardison working in an office and failing. He’d tried once, she knew, working tech support under an alias, but he had barely survived three hours before throwing in the towel. Not that she could blame him, if she’d had to spend time reminding people to plug things in, or turn them on, she would probably have the same reaction.
It was bad enough when one of the team invaded her space or dared to bring liquids within range of her system. Even her beloved Kevin Lynch was responsible for a small number of insults to her system. It was one of the many reasons why her friendship with Hardison, and with Amita, was important. She had to have an outlet for her computer related woes.
She cast one last glance towards the television, watching as the image of the latest in a long list of volcanic eruptions took up the screen, dark ash spilling into the sky, before turning it off. She saw worse things, committed by people, during the course of her work; she really didn’t need to listen to people whine about nature.
“I miss the plane.” Rossi commented flatly, as he eyed the rather dingy train carriage that they had been forced to travel in for their new case, and Garcia couldn’t help but agree. Yes, to her the plane was a grand thing, but there was also a practical side to it, as proven by the old man who had been watching her cleavage for ten minutes. On the plane, they could work the case, without interruptions. In a train carriage filled with random strangers, they really couldn’t.
Cleavage man shifted uncomfortably and looked away, drawing Garcia’s attention to Hotch, who had taken the seat beside her, across the table from cleavage man, and who was aiming his most intimidating glare at cleavage man. She mentally added ‘gallant’ to the words assigned to describe Hotch, fighting the urge to blush. One of these days he’d stop flustering her.
“We caught the guy in time.” Morgan commented in return to Rossi, from his seat across the aisle, next to a sleeping Spencer, “that’s all that really matters.”
Rossi grunted a vague affirmative, drawing an amused look from Emily. They were across the aisle from cleavage man, books scattered across the table between them and JJ, who had fallen asleep sprawled across two seats. It had been a long week, made even longer by the lack of the plane and the constant news reports on the latest eruptions. Apparently the volcano was done, for now, but the news readers were all too willing to provide lists of volcanoes in the same area that hadn’t erupted in some time. Bad news was good for the news business, even if it really sucked for everyone else.
“We’ll be back in DC in less than an hour.” Hotch pointed out, finally looking away from cleavage man to look his team over, “Hopefully,” he didn’t sound especially hopeful though, but that was just Hotch, Garcia reasoned, “we’ll be able to use the jet again soon.”
Rossi didn’t look especially convinced either, and Spencer muttered something about increasing volcanic activity over the past year being significant in his sleep. There were times that that boy really worried her.
Amita can remember how she and Charlie had been busy settling back into life in America, trying their best to make sure that Alan still felt welcome. It had been strange, after their time away, to come back to the family they’d left behind.
And she can remember what it was like, at the beginning of the end. How unaware they were of what was to come. How unaware they were that any day could be the last time they saw one another.
Don still comes over for dinner, that’s something that hasn’t changed in the time that they’ve been away, only now he brings Robin with him, whenever she’s not too busy with a case. It’s nice, but there are days when Amita longs for dinner alone with her husband, and the kitchen they’d had in their residence in Oxford.
She misses weekends in bed, with no one else in the house other than Charlie. Most of the time, Alan stays in his apartment, but sometimes Amita will go to the window, dressed only in her bra, and she’ll see him in the garden and blush, hurrying back to bed, or to dress. It’s awkward in a way it wasn’t before and she feels bad. She can hear her mother scolding her, reminding her that she’d pushed Charlie to convince Alan to stay, and it’s tradition to live with your parents.
It’s a few weeks before Don comes to them with a case, and she avoids working on it, leaving it to Larry and Charlie. She has work that she wants to do, that she’d finally been able to focus on while in England, but as she watches Charlie during the few hours she spends with him as he works, she remembers why she could never resist. There’s something satisfying about using maths to help people, even though it scares her still. She can remember what it was like, to have a man threatened to kill her, to be taken from those she loved.
It’s strange when she finally agrees to help, walking back into the FBI office and not seeing David or Liz. She smiles when she spots Colby and Nikki in the break room, throwing tea bags at each other, some things at least haven’t changed.
She sits with her legs crossed on the bed the night after they catch a serial killer before he could kill his fifth victim. She’d half expected to finally meet the people that Garcia talks to her about so often, but Don had been determined that with her and Charlie helping they would catch the killer before the BAU could even get on their plane.
@kali @tankgirl maths wins the day once more
@tankgirl @kali my baby boy told me so
@blueangel @kali @tankgirl hell yes, science, it works ;)
@kali @blueangel you back in the country?
@blueangel @kali I would not know what you mean by that - did I leave?
@tankgirl @kali @blueangel behave kids
@blueangel @tankgirl yes mom
Some things really never changed.
Volcanoes were bigger news than violent crime in LA, or at least it seemed that way these days. She could still remember all of the complaints from when volcanoes in Iceland grounded aircraft, and now American ones were doing the same. Which actually made it much worse, according to the press at least.
Larry, at least, was fascinated. He seemed to be spending more of his time reading histories of volcanic eruptions rather than working on any of his theories. Charlie wasn’t as taken with it, banishing their friend from his office whenever he started to talk about volcanoes, preferring to focus on the work at hand. They had killer jewel thieves to catch.
Amita settled onto the sofa beside Alan as the evening news started, having decided to take a break from the equations that were starting to blur in front of her. She looked up as Don walked through the front door frowning as she caught sight of his hair, speckled with dust as it was.
Only it wasn’t dust.
“The ash cloud’s getting bigger.” Don ran a hand through his hair roughly, spreading the ash across his head instead of dislodging it.
Alan motioned towards the TV, “It’s no surprise, this is the tenth day of eruptions and they mentioned something about another one of the volcanoes in the range starting to look more active.”
“They’ve grounded everything, and we’re being given these,” Don pulled a collection of face masks out of his back pocket, tossing them to his father.
“I’ve got some better than this in a box somewhere,” Alan eyed the masks critically before placing them on the table, “there’s left overs in the fridge for you, if you want them.”
Don grinned, “When have I ever said no. I’ll grab a plate then go see Charlie.” He nodded to Amita before heading into the kitchen and she watched him go, frowning.
“How bad do you think it’s going to get?” she picked up the masks, turning them over in her hands.
Alan shrugged, “I wouldn’t know, but it should quiet down soon enough, last time it was a month or so”
Amita nodded, glancing back towards the screen and the images they were showing. It didn’t look all that different from the images she remembers being shown at school. Her parents had been fascinated, India didn’t have any volcanoes. They worried about other things.
Hardison doesn’t really remember anything specific. They’d been in the middle of something, something that had been surprisingly uncomplicated. He’d been disappointed at the time, having grown used to Nate’s increasingly outlandish plans and ambitions. It’s nice to know that, for a time before the bad stuff really started, the stuff you couldn’t con, it hadn’t been worried about getting killed.
He misses it though, the way they used to be, and the cons they used to run. It’s something he knows they’ll never have again, something he’d never thought he’d lose, because he’d planned to never get caught. Problem was, getting caught wasn’t the only way that you could lose.
They’re eating in some dive in a tiny rural town again. It’s getting to be a habit, since they stole a country. Really, there’s not anything they could have done that would have topped that. You steal a country and you can never really go back to the same old small cons to help one or two people.
Ok, no that was a lie, stealing countries wasn’t exactly good for making money. Unless you were Parker, or you stole a country in a different way. They hadn’t exactly been in it for the money, but that wasn’t the point. They’d stolen a country, which was a big thing and one hell of a high.
He grinned a little, even as he idly hacked into a few random networks, ignoring the looks that Eliot kept throwing him. He was just bitter that he hadn’t had the opportunity to hit anybody for a while.
Hitting people always made Eliot happy. Or beating evil ex-bosses that he hadn’t mentioned, who had made him do things he would tell them if they asked, but didn’t want to.
Eliot was actually more complicated than he seemed on the surface. Even if a pretty bit of tail would be enough to distract him more often than not. Not that Hardison blamed him, man had needs.
Hardison frowned, muttering a curse as he eyed the progress of his download. Why did they always get cases in out of the way, failing internet places when there was a new episode of Doctor Who. Sometimes he wondered if Nate planned it that way, only Nate didn’t seem to know anything about Doctor Who, judging by the fact that he’d never called him on his slight obsession. Ok, he had the one time he’d Jonesed their IDs, but he would happily hold up a hand and admit that it hadn’t been subtle. He’d just wanted to see if it would work. It hadn’t.
There had been an angry message in a certain private work email.
They finished the job, winning back their clients’ money in style, if Hardison did say it himself, just in time to find out that all flights had been cancelled, due to volcanic ash. To say that they were all less than impressed was an understatement, but it wasn’t like Hardison could hack a volcano.
Despite what Parker seemed to think.
He might have managed to hack history, kind of, but hacking mother nature was something that only happened in bad sci-fi. Or good sci-fi where there was sufficient work in place to support the possibility. Last Hardison had checked, the NSA was still working on patching that hole, the Earth remained un-hackable.
It wasn’t hard to rent two cars, Eliot refusing to spend that many hours in a car with Hardison, and Sophie unwilling to spend that much time with Nate, for reasons that the pair thought the others were unaware of, and get on the road. It was a nice enough drive, or at least, Hardison was sure that if you liked scenery and the outdoors, it was a nice drive back. He spent the time catching up on his viewing, and keeping up with the news. He might have also been checking on safe houses and such, he’d seen Deep Impact, and he knew volcanoes weren’t comets, but similar rules applied when it came to survival. He’d have to play with Lucille mark four a bit, or else ash would just clog her engine right up.
“What do you know about volcanoes?” Sophie asked him, a few hours into the drive, taking advantage of a sleeping Parker, who had been adamant that volcanoes made hot snow and obsessed with listening to the radio news coverage of the eruptions. The radio was now playing the Carpenters, Sophie’s choice, because she was driving, and Hardison was not going to argue with her over music.
“A bit, not a whole lot. Mostly what I learned in science.”
“Oh.” Sophie smiled faintly, shifting a little in her seat.
Hardison frowned, leaning forward, “You worried Soph?”
She shrugged, “It’s not something you really think about is it, until it happens? And Parker’s fascination, and our being stuck with it, made me think about it. That’s all.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda hard to tune it out.” Hardison smiled fondly at the snoring Parker, “It’s a shame we can’t really con nature.”
Sophie laughed, shaking her head, “Stealing a country has really gone to your head hasn’t it? I think we’re best leaving nature to herself. She’s too unpredictable, and I don’t think even Nate would be able to think us out of the kind of trouble that would case.”
What they have now is different from what they had before, but sometimes, in the safety of Amita’s tent, each of them will admit that maybe, just maybe, they’re happier now than they were Before.
They sit sometimes, Hardison in the middle, Garcia curled up against his right side, Amita against his left, closest to the cot, an talk about what they remember, about those last days and the things they’ve lost.
They’ve all lost things, and people, but they’ve gained as well, and they’re closer to those that they have left.
There’s little doubt in Amita’s mind that Colby would have never have shared a bed with her and Charlie, in that other world, he would have let society’s expectation get in the way. She’s not sure if she would have been as happy without him. There’s a balance now, between the two men in her bed, that there wasn’t when there was just one.
Garcia thinks her team are all happier now, Hotch actually smiles, something that has more to do with Hardison, Parker and Jack than any lessening of his burden, and Morgan trusts them all a little more easily. Rossi is still writing books, on scattered bits of paper that Jessica burns every so often, and Emily’s as good a mother as they thought she’d be. They’re all happy in their little groups, and as part of the bigger family they have now. No more over analysing things.
It’s true that there’s a hole, where the head of Hardison’s little family used to be, but it doesn’t ache like it used to. Hardison thinks that maybe Nate would be proud of the way they’ve stayed together. The way they’ve held each other up through the end of the world as they knew it. He also thinks Nate would be shocked if he knew that two of them have taken up with, fallen for, an FBI agent, who still tries to be one, despite everything. Or maybe he wouldn’t be, after all, the world they have now isn’t the one they had Before.
It's a whole new world.
-
no fearsome tide: part five
Before
There’s a divide, in all of their minds, between the present, and Before.
Before, they all lived in buildings, with windows and kitchens and bathrooms. Before, money had been a necessity. Before, there had been lines, rules that people followed because they were somehow important, even though they really weren’t.
Every so often, they’ll talk about Before. Once, they talked about the immediate Before. When they’d been wary but disbelieving, so secure in the world that was. They each remember it a little differently.
Garcia remembers how it was for the BAU, how distant the danger had been for them, even though it really hadn’t been.
Penelope Garcia chewed nervously on the end of her pen, staring at the television screen mounted on the wall behind her computer screens. She’d avoided the main bullpen, knowing from experience that if they had the news on Spencer would be in full statistics mode.
There were times when Spencer’s knowledge could be useful, even reassuring, but this wasn’t one of them. Garcia was willing to admit that she had probably watched one too many apocalyptic dramas over the years, a good few of which had involved volcanoes causing the end of the world, but over the past year she had started to wonder if maybe, they weren’t as unrealistic as Spencer liked to say they were.
Spencer could, after all, list the effects of every recorded major volcanic eruption, many of which hadn’t exactly uplifting. So he couldn’t exactly argue that volcanoes weren’t dangerous, that they didn’t kill people and destroy whole towns.
Garcia jumped as one of her computers beeped, new text flashing up on the screen. Garcia smiled, abandoning the pen to free up her hands to type.
@blueangel rewatching #firesofpompeii and taking bets on when ppl start turning to stone and seeing the future in RL
@tankgirl @blueangel if that happens RTD could sue the world
@blueangel @tankgirl good luck to him in ‘this economic climate’ - how goes the gmen?
@tankgirl @blueangel I could not possibly tell you that, being who you are
@blueangel @tankgirl ;p my day job is miles from your day job, no way are your babies interested in me
Garcia grinned, feeling her dark feeling lift, just a little. She’d known Alec Hardison for years, though she was careful to make sure no one knew that. The hacker’s code and all that. He was a good friend, and she was happy to stay ignorant of just what he got up to, he’d always played in a different area than her, which was one of the reasons only the white collar division was interested in getting a hold of him. He was however, still in her league, right up the top of the list, but the FBI, CIA and NSA had just never managed to get their hands on him.
She tapped her fingers on her desk idly, trying to decide how to answer, or whether to just deflect back to the original subject. She didn’t have much other work to do; it had been a relatively easy week for the BAU, taken up by desk consultations and paper work catch up, so she could afford to spend some time tweeting at her peeps.
@tankgirl @blueangel which epi are you watching next?
@blueangel @tankgirl time, and coworkers, seem to be conspiring to interrupt my DW time ;(
@tankgirl @blueangel awww poor baby, such a shame
@blueangel @tankgirl working for a living is such hard work ;)
Garcia laughed, trying to imagine Hardison working in an office and failing. He’d tried once, she knew, working tech support under an alias, but he had barely survived three hours before throwing in the towel. Not that she could blame him, if she’d had to spend time reminding people to plug things in, or turn them on, she would probably have the same reaction.
It was bad enough when one of the team invaded her space or dared to bring liquids within range of her system. Even her beloved Kevin Lynch was responsible for a small number of insults to her system. It was one of the many reasons why her friendship with Hardison, and with Amita, was important. She had to have an outlet for her computer related woes.
She cast one last glance towards the television, watching as the image of the latest in a long list of volcanic eruptions took up the screen, dark ash spilling into the sky, before turning it off. She saw worse things, committed by people, during the course of her work; she really didn’t need to listen to people whine about nature.
“I miss the plane.” Rossi commented flatly, as he eyed the rather dingy train carriage that they had been forced to travel in for their new case, and Garcia couldn’t help but agree. Yes, to her the plane was a grand thing, but there was also a practical side to it, as proven by the old man who had been watching her cleavage for ten minutes. On the plane, they could work the case, without interruptions. In a train carriage filled with random strangers, they really couldn’t.
Cleavage man shifted uncomfortably and looked away, drawing Garcia’s attention to Hotch, who had taken the seat beside her, across the table from cleavage man, and who was aiming his most intimidating glare at cleavage man. She mentally added ‘gallant’ to the words assigned to describe Hotch, fighting the urge to blush. One of these days he’d stop flustering her.
“We caught the guy in time.” Morgan commented in return to Rossi, from his seat across the aisle, next to a sleeping Spencer, “that’s all that really matters.”
Rossi grunted a vague affirmative, drawing an amused look from Emily. They were across the aisle from cleavage man, books scattered across the table between them and JJ, who had fallen asleep sprawled across two seats. It had been a long week, made even longer by the lack of the plane and the constant news reports on the latest eruptions. Apparently the volcano was done, for now, but the news readers were all too willing to provide lists of volcanoes in the same area that hadn’t erupted in some time. Bad news was good for the news business, even if it really sucked for everyone else.
“We’ll be back in DC in less than an hour.” Hotch pointed out, finally looking away from cleavage man to look his team over, “Hopefully,” he didn’t sound especially hopeful though, but that was just Hotch, Garcia reasoned, “we’ll be able to use the jet again soon.”
Rossi didn’t look especially convinced either, and Spencer muttered something about increasing volcanic activity over the past year being significant in his sleep. There were times that that boy really worried her.
Amita can remember how she and Charlie had been busy settling back into life in America, trying their best to make sure that Alan still felt welcome. It had been strange, after their time away, to come back to the family they’d left behind.
And she can remember what it was like, at the beginning of the end. How unaware they were of what was to come. How unaware they were that any day could be the last time they saw one another.
Don still comes over for dinner, that’s something that hasn’t changed in the time that they’ve been away, only now he brings Robin with him, whenever she’s not too busy with a case. It’s nice, but there are days when Amita longs for dinner alone with her husband, and the kitchen they’d had in their residence in Oxford.
She misses weekends in bed, with no one else in the house other than Charlie. Most of the time, Alan stays in his apartment, but sometimes Amita will go to the window, dressed only in her bra, and she’ll see him in the garden and blush, hurrying back to bed, or to dress. It’s awkward in a way it wasn’t before and she feels bad. She can hear her mother scolding her, reminding her that she’d pushed Charlie to convince Alan to stay, and it’s tradition to live with your parents.
It’s a few weeks before Don comes to them with a case, and she avoids working on it, leaving it to Larry and Charlie. She has work that she wants to do, that she’d finally been able to focus on while in England, but as she watches Charlie during the few hours she spends with him as he works, she remembers why she could never resist. There’s something satisfying about using maths to help people, even though it scares her still. She can remember what it was like, to have a man threatened to kill her, to be taken from those she loved.
It’s strange when she finally agrees to help, walking back into the FBI office and not seeing David or Liz. She smiles when she spots Colby and Nikki in the break room, throwing tea bags at each other, some things at least haven’t changed.
She sits with her legs crossed on the bed the night after they catch a serial killer before he could kill his fifth victim. She’d half expected to finally meet the people that Garcia talks to her about so often, but Don had been determined that with her and Charlie helping they would catch the killer before the BAU could even get on their plane.
@kali @tankgirl maths wins the day once more
@tankgirl @kali my baby boy told me so
@blueangel @kali @tankgirl hell yes, science, it works ;)
@kali @blueangel you back in the country?
@blueangel @kali I would not know what you mean by that - did I leave?
@tankgirl @kali @blueangel behave kids
@blueangel @tankgirl yes mom
Some things really never changed.
Volcanoes were bigger news than violent crime in LA, or at least it seemed that way these days. She could still remember all of the complaints from when volcanoes in Iceland grounded aircraft, and now American ones were doing the same. Which actually made it much worse, according to the press at least.
Larry, at least, was fascinated. He seemed to be spending more of his time reading histories of volcanic eruptions rather than working on any of his theories. Charlie wasn’t as taken with it, banishing their friend from his office whenever he started to talk about volcanoes, preferring to focus on the work at hand. They had killer jewel thieves to catch.
Amita settled onto the sofa beside Alan as the evening news started, having decided to take a break from the equations that were starting to blur in front of her. She looked up as Don walked through the front door frowning as she caught sight of his hair, speckled with dust as it was.
Only it wasn’t dust.
“The ash cloud’s getting bigger.” Don ran a hand through his hair roughly, spreading the ash across his head instead of dislodging it.
Alan motioned towards the TV, “It’s no surprise, this is the tenth day of eruptions and they mentioned something about another one of the volcanoes in the range starting to look more active.”
“They’ve grounded everything, and we’re being given these,” Don pulled a collection of face masks out of his back pocket, tossing them to his father.
“I’ve got some better than this in a box somewhere,” Alan eyed the masks critically before placing them on the table, “there’s left overs in the fridge for you, if you want them.”
Don grinned, “When have I ever said no. I’ll grab a plate then go see Charlie.” He nodded to Amita before heading into the kitchen and she watched him go, frowning.
“How bad do you think it’s going to get?” she picked up the masks, turning them over in her hands.
Alan shrugged, “I wouldn’t know, but it should quiet down soon enough, last time it was a month or so”
Amita nodded, glancing back towards the screen and the images they were showing. It didn’t look all that different from the images she remembers being shown at school. Her parents had been fascinated, India didn’t have any volcanoes. They worried about other things.
Hardison doesn’t really remember anything specific. They’d been in the middle of something, something that had been surprisingly uncomplicated. He’d been disappointed at the time, having grown used to Nate’s increasingly outlandish plans and ambitions. It’s nice to know that, for a time before the bad stuff really started, the stuff you couldn’t con, it hadn’t been worried about getting killed.
He misses it though, the way they used to be, and the cons they used to run. It’s something he knows they’ll never have again, something he’d never thought he’d lose, because he’d planned to never get caught. Problem was, getting caught wasn’t the only way that you could lose.
They’re eating in some dive in a tiny rural town again. It’s getting to be a habit, since they stole a country. Really, there’s not anything they could have done that would have topped that. You steal a country and you can never really go back to the same old small cons to help one or two people.
Ok, no that was a lie, stealing countries wasn’t exactly good for making money. Unless you were Parker, or you stole a country in a different way. They hadn’t exactly been in it for the money, but that wasn’t the point. They’d stolen a country, which was a big thing and one hell of a high.
He grinned a little, even as he idly hacked into a few random networks, ignoring the looks that Eliot kept throwing him. He was just bitter that he hadn’t had the opportunity to hit anybody for a while.
Hitting people always made Eliot happy. Or beating evil ex-bosses that he hadn’t mentioned, who had made him do things he would tell them if they asked, but didn’t want to.
Eliot was actually more complicated than he seemed on the surface. Even if a pretty bit of tail would be enough to distract him more often than not. Not that Hardison blamed him, man had needs.
Hardison frowned, muttering a curse as he eyed the progress of his download. Why did they always get cases in out of the way, failing internet places when there was a new episode of Doctor Who. Sometimes he wondered if Nate planned it that way, only Nate didn’t seem to know anything about Doctor Who, judging by the fact that he’d never called him on his slight obsession. Ok, he had the one time he’d Jonesed their IDs, but he would happily hold up a hand and admit that it hadn’t been subtle. He’d just wanted to see if it would work. It hadn’t.
There had been an angry message in a certain private work email.
They finished the job, winning back their clients’ money in style, if Hardison did say it himself, just in time to find out that all flights had been cancelled, due to volcanic ash. To say that they were all less than impressed was an understatement, but it wasn’t like Hardison could hack a volcano.
Despite what Parker seemed to think.
He might have managed to hack history, kind of, but hacking mother nature was something that only happened in bad sci-fi. Or good sci-fi where there was sufficient work in place to support the possibility. Last Hardison had checked, the NSA was still working on patching that hole, the Earth remained un-hackable.
It wasn’t hard to rent two cars, Eliot refusing to spend that many hours in a car with Hardison, and Sophie unwilling to spend that much time with Nate, for reasons that the pair thought the others were unaware of, and get on the road. It was a nice enough drive, or at least, Hardison was sure that if you liked scenery and the outdoors, it was a nice drive back. He spent the time catching up on his viewing, and keeping up with the news. He might have also been checking on safe houses and such, he’d seen Deep Impact, and he knew volcanoes weren’t comets, but similar rules applied when it came to survival. He’d have to play with Lucille mark four a bit, or else ash would just clog her engine right up.
“What do you know about volcanoes?” Sophie asked him, a few hours into the drive, taking advantage of a sleeping Parker, who had been adamant that volcanoes made hot snow and obsessed with listening to the radio news coverage of the eruptions. The radio was now playing the Carpenters, Sophie’s choice, because she was driving, and Hardison was not going to argue with her over music.
“A bit, not a whole lot. Mostly what I learned in science.”
“Oh.” Sophie smiled faintly, shifting a little in her seat.
Hardison frowned, leaning forward, “You worried Soph?”
She shrugged, “It’s not something you really think about is it, until it happens? And Parker’s fascination, and our being stuck with it, made me think about it. That’s all.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda hard to tune it out.” Hardison smiled fondly at the snoring Parker, “It’s a shame we can’t really con nature.”
Sophie laughed, shaking her head, “Stealing a country has really gone to your head hasn’t it? I think we’re best leaving nature to herself. She’s too unpredictable, and I don’t think even Nate would be able to think us out of the kind of trouble that would case.”
What they have now is different from what they had before, but sometimes, in the safety of Amita’s tent, each of them will admit that maybe, just maybe, they’re happier now than they were Before.
They sit sometimes, Hardison in the middle, Garcia curled up against his right side, Amita against his left, closest to the cot, an talk about what they remember, about those last days and the things they’ve lost.
They’ve all lost things, and people, but they’ve gained as well, and they’re closer to those that they have left.
There’s little doubt in Amita’s mind that Colby would have never have shared a bed with her and Charlie, in that other world, he would have let society’s expectation get in the way. She’s not sure if she would have been as happy without him. There’s a balance now, between the two men in her bed, that there wasn’t when there was just one.
Garcia thinks her team are all happier now, Hotch actually smiles, something that has more to do with Hardison, Parker and Jack than any lessening of his burden, and Morgan trusts them all a little more easily. Rossi is still writing books, on scattered bits of paper that Jessica burns every so often, and Emily’s as good a mother as they thought she’d be. They’re all happy in their little groups, and as part of the bigger family they have now. No more over analysing things.
It’s true that there’s a hole, where the head of Hardison’s little family used to be, but it doesn’t ache like it used to. Hardison thinks that maybe Nate would be proud of the way they’ve stayed together. The way they’ve held each other up through the end of the world as they knew it. He also thinks Nate would be shocked if he knew that two of them have taken up with, fallen for, an FBI agent, who still tries to be one, despite everything. Or maybe he wouldn’t be, after all, the world they have now isn’t the one they had Before.
It's a whole new world.
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