Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

bushwhack ('bu̇sh-ˌ(h)wak), transitive verb

to attack (someone) by surprise from a hidden place : ambush

He woke to the feeling of heat on his face and pressure on his chest. A groan built in his throat, but he didn’t voice it. Quiet, always quiet, and still. Don’t move until you know what you’re moving into. Make no sound until you know who’s there to hear you. He breathed in scorched air and opened his eyes.

His vision blurred the flames leaping out of the window above him, but the thick smell of smoke shot him through with enough alarm to move his aching body. Something heavy slipped off his stomach as he sat up, and he blinked to focus on the object beside him.

An arm, limp, connected to a bloody shoulder. Glassy eyes stared from a face he didn’t know, mouth open, cheek pressed into the concrete.

They’d fallen together, this man beside him, when something like a horse’s kick forced them through the window. Fragments of broken glass glittered across his shirt, and the back of his right hand was torn and bloody. The dead man was sprawled across his legs, and he extricated himself with careful movements, trying not to aggravate his throbbing head and burning chest.

Voices came to him through the crackle of the fire, and he covered his face with an arm as he eased himself free. “Where is he?” a man yelled from somewhere to his right. “Where’s Spencer? Find him!”

He staggered to his feet, squeezing his eyes shut as the room swayed around him, and pushed long hair—impractically long, and sticky with blood—out of his face. Pain shot up his leg, but there were more voices now, and instinct drove him toward the door at the far end of what looked like a parking garage.

A handful of cars blocked his route; he ducked behind a black sedan and squinted through the smoke at the partially open door.

He hesitated. There was something he was supposed to do, to find. He couldn’t leave without it.

“I found a body!” a new voice yelled.

“Who is it?” asked another.

“It’s Vinny. Call it in—tell Lancaster Vinny’s dead. Who’s got eyes on Spencer?”

Can’t make a recovery if you’re dead. Escape now, return later. 

He suppressed a cough and darted toward the door, running in a low crouch. The flames were high behind him now, hot against the back of his shirt, and he hoped it would give him cover.

“There! There, the door—stop him!”

The crack of a rifle split the smoke behind him, and he threw himself through the doorway and ran on without bothering to shut it. No time. He had to find a place to defend himself, something to put his back against without getting himself cornered. Another shot, a curse, an order: “Find him! Find him!” He kept running.

It was dark. He moved in the shadows, sticking to the side of the building as he turned the corner, his ears straining into the night.

“He’s heading south,” called a low voice.

A hedge cut along the sidewalk beside the building, and he gathered his strength and vaulted over it, placing his hand on the thickest branch he could find. The overlapping sticks ripped at his already-bloody hand, but he pushed the pain from his mind and held himself still as two figures hurried past.

He was behind them now, in position to take them out. Adrenaline pounded through him, and he pictured the way the fight would go: he would trail them until he got close enough to slip his hands over their throats, and then a twist—

His body went cold. The feeling of bones snapping under his palms was so strong, so real, that nausea churned his stomach.

He’d done it before.

A siren wailed in the distance. He put his back to the burning building and headed toward the sounds of traffic.

He didn’t know where he was.

The blare of car horns and engines and voices and music pounded in his head, and he squinted through the traffic lights and storefront signs as he stumbled onto the street. Exhaust mingled with the smoke still in his lungs, and he staggered into an alley and coughed until he retched.

“You sound like you’re in bad shape,” said a voice.

He looked up, rubbing a hand over his eyes until they focused on a man sitting against the wall a few feet away. “Sorry,” he rasped, wincing when the word dragged over his raw throat.

The man studied him. “What’s your name?”

He blinked. His name?

What was his name?

The throbbing in his head intensified, and he swallowed a moan and pressed his forehead against the hand resting on the wall.

“Don’t have to be your real name,” the man prompted. “Folks call me J.B.”

Any name… What was it the men had shouted at the parking garage? 

He spoke without lifting his head. “Spencer.”

“Spencer,” the man echoed. “All right. You need a place to stay?”

He glanced up, shaking his head. “I’m… I’m not…”

“No need to be shy,” J.B. said. “There’s a place over on 5th. I was gonna head there myself, once I got myself moving. You been there before?”

He didn’t know. Now that his mind was free to contemplate more than escaping the fire and the men, there was a disturbing lack of information to draw from. He’d run from the parking garage, where he’d woken up beside the dead man after falling from the window.

Before that… nothing.

J.B. waited in silence, but it was too dark to read his expression. “Come on,” he said finally, working himself to his feet. “The house closes in an hour. We have to get there before they lock up for the night.”

It was tempting to let him go, to collapse against the concrete and let the darkness have him, but the thought of giving up didn’t sit well in his stomach. He rolled his sore shoulders and closed his eyes, summoning the strength to follow J.B. out into the street, and tested the name he’d given in a whisper.

“Spencer.”

Nothing. There was no flash of insight, no connection beyond having heard it as he fled the garage. Still, he had to call himself something.

“You coming?” J.B. said.

Spencer let out a long breath and went after him.

Chapter Text

The building wasn’t supposed to explode.

Well, it was, but it wasn’t supposed to explode yet.

Parker had the C4 charges in her bag, ready for her to plant them against the support beams in the basement at the half-constructed LanCast offices. The blast wouldn’t take down the building, just shake the foundation enough that the resulting investigation would find the cheap ash mixture in the concrete, and they’d be able to prove that Stephen Lancaster had embezzled the city grant money that was supposed to go into his new high-rise company building.

The plan had been for her to place the charges an hour ago, but she’d gotten distracted by the candy store down the street and had been late. Now, she stood on the sidewalk across from the burning office, watching their evidence literally go up in flames, listening to the firefighters yell directions as they fought to control the destruction. Normally she enjoyed a good explosion, but this one made her feel the way Hardison said he felt when he jumped off buildings.

She was supposed to be inside.

“Guys?” she tried again, holding her finger to her earbud. “Can anybody hear me?”

The comms had been silent all afternoon, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Hardison had pulled an all-nighter getting their paperwork together and was napping back at the hotel, and Nate and Sophie were across town distracting Lancaster so Parker could break into his building. Eliot was probably out shopping for organic groceries at the nearest vegan market. She’d asked him to make her brownies to celebrate her birthday (which wasn’t for another two months, but Eliot never asked), and he’d only agreed after she promised to eat some vegetables first. He’d said something about a vegetarian bourguignon, but she’d tuned him out when he started listing ingredients.

She’d give the Centenary Diamond to hear him ramble about beans and onions now.

More sirens cut through the air, and Parker drew back as a police car and a black SUV joined the dozen law enforcement and first responder vehicles already parked on the street. The back door of the SUV opened, and Lancaster threw himself out of the car with a cry of dismay.

A police officer stopped him as he ran for the building, and Parker slipped across the street to join the crowd gathered outside the ring of cones and police tape.

“Mr. Lancaster,” the officer said. “We need you to confirm that no one was inside the building.”

“I don’t know,” Lancaster answered breathlessly. “The foreman said he might stop by to check on something. How did this happen?”

The officer guided Lancaster toward a group of firefighters, and Parker followed in the crowd. “We’re not sure yet. Captain Stanley should be able to give you more information.”

They moved out of earshot, but it only took a few minutes for Parker to duck the tape, find an unattended coat and helmet, and move to the side of a firetruck behind Lancaster and the captain. “—can’t believe this happened,” Lancaster was saying, his stilly white cowboy hat in his hands. “I never imagined the threats were real.”

“What threats?” the officer said.

Lancaster put a hand in his pocket and handed over a folded envelop. “This showed up in my downtown office yesterday morning. It says there’s a group of thieves targeting me, and that they were planning to blow up my building. I get so many threats each week, I never thought anything of it.”

Parker turned her head and spoke into her shoulder. “Nate,” she hissed. “I really need you to hear me now. We have problems.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come in to the station to give a statement,” the officer said. “Anything you can give us about this group of thieves will help us...”

He kept talking, but a shout from the crowd pulled her attention away, and she started toward the sound as relief washed through her. Hardison. He’d know what to do, how to fix the comms, how to get ahold of Nate—but before she could reach him, he let out another cry that cut through her chest like a bullet. 

“Parker! Move, please, I have to—”

He tore through the police tape and broke toward the building, but two other officers blocked his way and dragged him back from the fire. “Let me go,” he begged. “She’s inside—please, let me go. Let me—”

“I got him,” Parker said, pushing between the officers and setting her hand on Hardison’s arm. “Come on, sir, this way.”

He fought her for a moment, still intent on forcing his way through the barricade, until she put her hand against his cheek to turn his face from the fire.

“Please,” he whispered, already sagging against her.

She held him up, moving to block his view of the building. “Hardison,” she said firmly, hating the way the flashing lights highlighted the anguish on his face.

He blinked at her, opened his mouth, and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Parker?”

“Yes,” she said.

He threw his arms around her, crushing her against his chest and burying his face in her neck. “Thank God,” he sobbed. “Girl, I thought—I saw the news, and I couldn’t get you on the comms, and I thought—”

Guilt prickled through her. Hardison was always so careful about the way he touched her, making sure she had space and choice and an escape route. But his shoulders shook against her cheek, and she pressed back into his hug as a silent apology. “I hadn’t gone in yet,” she murmured.

He pulled away, but kept his hands on her shoulders. “What happened?”

“I think we’re blown,” Parker said, frowning at the building. “Lancaster just showed up and said he received a warning that a bunch of thieves were going to blow up his office.”

“But you didn’t...?”

Parker shook her head. “It was already burning when I got here. What’s going on with the comms?”

“I don’t know.” Hardison’s eyes were on the fire now, too, and he let go with one hand to fish in his pocket for his phone. “I woke up and saw this all on the news, and when no one answered their phones, I thought...”

Right, phones. Hardison kept saying she should carry one of those with her, but it never made sense when they had the earbuds. Who else was she going to talk to?

“Where are the others?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He showed her his screen, which flashed no service across the top. “I can’t get ahold of anyone.”

Parker shivered as a pulse of worry worked its way down her spine. No comms? No phones? Lancaster’s warning, and now the building? They’d missed something, overlooked something, and it was blowing up in their faces.

How badly were they going to get burned?

“Eliot said to go back to base if the comms ever failed,” Hardison said, breaking through her spiral. “I guess that’s the hotel.”

Parker nodded. He’d walked them all through it—how to take winding routes that changed direction without warning, how to spot a tail, how to get rid of it. How to approach the base carefully in case it had been compromised. Unease fluttered in her stomach, but she pushed it down and gave Hardison a small smile.

“Can I drive?”

Hardison groaned, sighed, and handed over his keys.

Nate and Sophie were waiting for them at the hotel.

Eliot was not.

They’d made it back without trouble, even though the extra turns and backtracking had cost them time. Sophie met them at the door and ushered them into the room, where Nate was planted pensively in front of the window. He spoke without looking at them.

“Lancaster ducked us. We lost him. What’s going on with the comms?”

Hardison dropped onto the couch and dragged his laptop across the coffee table. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to look into it.”

“Did someone knock them out on purpose?” Sophie asked. She had closed the door behind them and was pacing before it, her shawl clutched tight around her shoulders. “Some security we didn’t know about? Even Lancaster himself?”

Parker sat on the arm of the couch. “Or whoever warned him?”

Nate shot her a sharp look. “What?”

“He said he got a letter warning him that we were going to attack his building,” Parker said. “I heard him telling the police.”

Nate’s gaze switched to Hardison. “How?”

“It wasn’t anything on my end,” Hardison said, without looking up from his laptop. “I’m going over our aliases now, and there haven’t been any searches or inquiries or nothing. He didn’t ID us online.”

Parker angled herself to face Nate. “Then someone recognized one of us in person?”

“We would have recognized them, too,” Sophie said.

Hardison shrugged and opened his mouth, but Nate cut him off. “The phones aren’t working, either. Have either of you heard from Eliot?”

Parker shook her head, and Hardison scooted closer to his laptop.

“I might be able to track him. Give me a sec.”

Nate waited. They all did, tense under the weight of anxiety and silence. Hardison tapped his keyboard, Sophie rubbed her forefinger over her thumbnail, and Nate stared out the window. Parker tried to remember what kinds of vegetables Eliot said he was going to make her eat that night. She liked it when he picked the weird ones—black carrots and watermelon radish and fiddleheads. She liked to stand behind him and sneak the pieces he’d chopped up and smile when he stuttered at her to stop. She liked to share the space with him while he created.

She did not like the way Hardison’s eyes squinted up as he read his screen, or the way he covered his mouth and took out his phone. “Does anyone have service?”

One by one, the others shook their heads.

Hardison glanced at Parker. “Okay. We’re looking for a signal jammer—a walkie-talkie, or another phone, maybe even a router. Something that’s not supposed to be there.”

She bounded to her feet and threw herself into searching/destroying the room, upending chairs, de-shading lamps, ripping down curtains. The others took slightly more reserved approaches, but Parker was the one who found the cellphone taped to the back of the register.

Hardison pried off the back and frowned. “Uh-oh.”

The balloon of hope that had been inflating in Parker’s chest popped. She couldn’t voice the question, but Hardison answered anyway.

“This isn’t a jammer… it’s more like my EMP emitter. This is what knocked out our comms, and our phones. It sends out a small, targeted signal, probably only has power in this room, but when we were all here yesterday, it would have been enough.”

“Can you reverse it?” Nate asked. 

Hardison shook his head. “I can turn it off, but we have to wait for our devices to come back online. What I can do, though, is transfer the info on our phones over to new ones, so we’ll know if Eliot tries to call.”

Nate spoke to the window. “Do it.”

“I need new phones,” Hardison said. “Parker, can you—?”

She was out of the room and halfway down the hall before he finished talking. Nate didn’t like it when she stole from non-marks, but she didn’t have time to find a phone store, and she’d return them all before this was over. There were plenty of people in the lobby, and it only took a few moments to lift four shiny new-to-her phones from their pockets, bags, and purses.

She took the stairs back up to the room, keeping an eye on the other hotel guests the way Eliot had taught her. Remember the faces you see. Find details that stand out and hold on to them. Facial features, voices, walks. Things that are harder to change.

She noticed those things easily enough, but she’d never understand how he could remember so much about the people in the background.

How much he saw. What he thought was important.

She ran faster.

“Got them,” she said, slipping into the room and dropping the phones on the couch beside Hardison. He lifted one and popped the back off, then pulled a chip out of Nate’s already half-disassembled phone and stuck it into the new one. He snapped the back closed and turned it on, then held it up with a nod. “There. Eliot called two hours ago, and he left a voicemail.”

He tapped the screen and held it out so they could listen on speaker.

“Nate.”

Parker swallowed. Eliot’s voice on the message was cold and flat, harsh in the way he got when things were bad.

When he was afraid.

“We’re burned. Get Sophie and Hardison and go to another hotel—new names, new cards, everything. Get rid of your phones. Don’t leave a trail—I’ll find you. I just got a text from an unknown number with a picture of Parker on her way to the LanCast building, and then a message saying they had her.” There was a pause, the crash of a slamming door through the speaker. “I’m on my way to her now. Be ready.”

The message ended. All eyes went to Parker, who could only stare back as her body went cold. “They didn’t have me,” she whispered.

Nate swore. “They set a trap. Hardison, can you get a track on him?”

Hardison’s eyes were wide, and filled with all the terror coursing through Parker’s veins.

“Last location was the LanCast office,” he whispered. “But the signal went dead an hour ago, when...”

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have to.

Chapter Text

“You sure you’re all right?” J.B. asked for the third time.

Spencer sucked in a breath, fighting his blurring vision and concentrating on keeping himself upright. “Fine,” he grunted. The lie came easily, and J.B. accepted it without question, but it brought back the question he’d been trying to avoid.

What sort of a man was he?

He’d known exactly what to do to escape the parking garage, and he hadn’t balked at being shot at or waking up beside a dead body. He’d almost certainly killed before. He lied without remorse. He’d even found himself noting various pick-pocketing targets as he followed J.B. through the streets. Worst of all, he’d left something behind in that garage—something important, something worth more than his life—and he couldn’t remember what.

Maybe the men who’d been after him had a good reason to want him dead.

They walked just over a mile, and Spencer felt every step in his pounding head and aching bones. He definitely had a concussion, and his various other injuries were growing harder to ignore. The obvious solution would be to go to a hospital, but instinct warned him against that. He had no idea who his enemies were or where they might be. Hospitals meant reports and questions and paper trails.

He’d had worse. Probably. No hospitals.

He was shaking by the time J.B. led the way up the front steps of a tall, thin building squashed between a liquor store and an office for rent. “This isn’t an official shelter,” J.B. explained, puffing up the stairs and throwing a gap-toothed smile over his shoulder at Spencer. “Nothing run by the city, anyway. Miss Sunny June lets a few of us stay in her extra rooms, ‘s long as we help out around the place. Jim seems to have gotten himself on his feet again, so there’ll be room.”

Spencer hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, gripping the railing with his bloody hand, his breath coming in pathetic little pants. After a few steps, J.B. paused and gave an encouraging wave toward the door. “Almost there.”

“Why are you helping me?” Spencer blurted.

J.B. lifted his eyebrows. “You need help.”

He smiled, and when Spencer only stared in response, he turned and went on. Spencer stayed where he was. He couldn’t afford to trust random men he’d met on the street, not with so many others looking for him, but what choice did he have? He needed rest, a chance to clean up and assess his injuries, to try to remember something about his situation. He’d found J.B. by accident—his enemies couldn’t have anticipated him going down that exact street at that exact moment—but still, he was uncertain. That feeling still pulled at him, the certainty that he was leaving something behind, that he needed to go back.

“Come on,” J.B. called gently. “You can leave tomorrow if you want, but you need a place for tonight.”

Rest when you can. Regain your strength, then get back to the job.

Spencer leaned his weight on the railing and started up the stairs.

“Sunny’ll want a full name,” J.B. said casually. “She doesn’t keep records, but she likes to know who’s staying with her.”

Another name. Spencer closed his eyes, casting through the darkness for some fragment of identity. Nothing came to mind. He dug through his recent memories, billboards and posters they’d passed on their walk through the city, and settled on the name of an oil company that had advertised a job opening in the window of a career center.

“Ready?” J.B. asked. Without waiting for an answer, he knocked on the door and stepped back to stand beside Spencer. He straightened, trying to make himself look as presentable as possible, but he winced when a light came on over the door a second before it opened.

A large, round woman stood in the doorway in a cotton nightgown, her gray hair done up in curlers, a baseball bat in one hand. She adjusted a pair of cat eye glasses over her nose and studied them before breaking into a grin. “J.B.! I was wondering if you were going to come by tonight!”

“Miss Sunny June,” J.B. said, stepping forward to give the woman a hug. She lowered her bat, but kept it in her hand as she looked over J.B.’s head at Spencer.

“I see you brought a friend.”

“He needs a place,” J.B. said, stepping back and setting his hand on Spencer’s shoulder.

Sunny June gave him a long, appraising look. She was several inches taller than him, and somehow managed to look intimidating in her nightclothes. “What’s your name?”

“Spencer Stone.”

“I got no tolerance for drugs or alcohol in my home,” she said sternly.

Spencer tried not to squint through the light as he nodded. “No, ma’am. Won’t be a problem.”

He fell into a southern drawl as he spoke, which somehow felt both natural and affected. She studied him a moment longer, a slight frown settling over a mouth marked with laugh lines, before finally leaning the bat against the wall by the door.

“All right then. If J.B. vouches for you, we can give it a try. There’s a room upstairs you can use, but you’ll be sharing a bathroom with J.B. and Miguel. That a problem?”

“No, ma’am.”

She continued to watch him, but her expression was softening. “Get yourself cleaned up. I have some supper left you boys can share.”

J.B. gave her another hug, and Spencer dipped his head and murmured, “Thank you, ma’am,” as he ducked inside. He followed J.B. up the stairs and into the tiny room he was to use, furnished with a twin bed pushed against one wall, a dresser, and a small desk. It was simple, but the smell of fresh soap wafted up from the sheets, and a few old paintings and bright curtains gave the room a homey feel. Spencer stood in the doorway and inhaled, sinking into a flash of memory: he was small, running between dangling clothes on a laundry line, laughing as he chased after a girl in a yellow dress.

“You can use the bathroom first,” J.B. said behind him. “There are towels in the cabinet, soap and such in the shower. Sunny usually keeps some extra clothes in the dressers. Take a look, see if anything’ll fit.”

He opened his eyes, forcing down the hollow feeling burning through his chest. He should thank J.B., he knew he should, but he wasn’t sure how to say it. Thanks for not leaving me to die on the street. I can’t pay you back. I don’t know if I trust you.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” J.B. said, backing into the hallway, and then it was too late.

So he was a coward as well as a criminal.

He considered just going to sleep, but his stomach was empty and there was blood in his hair, and he didn’t want to ruin Sunny’s sheets. With brisk, mechanical movements, he searched the dresser drawers until he found some clothes that looked like they might fit, then shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the shower without looking in the mirror, afraid of what he wouldn’t recognize. His clothes were torn and stained and singed, the pockets empty except for a little cash. Still, they were his only clue to himself, so he folded them as nicely as he could and left them on the floor. Undressing only gave him more questions: bruises across his forearms, defensive wounds to go with the swollen knuckles earned from punches; scraped skin on his shoulders and back, probably from his fall; a shallow cut across his thigh, a turned ankle that throbbed without the support of his boot. Then there were the scars crisscrossing his body, more stories he couldn’t remember. He ran the washcloth over them quickly, not wanting to linger over the feeling of calloused and pitted skin. He gritted his teeth as he washed the blood from his hair, feeling gingerly along the cut in his scalp. It wasn’t large, and had mostly stopped bleeding already, though he stood under the water until he was sure he wouldn’t get blood on anything else.

When he could procrastinate no longer, he turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and cleared a circle of steam from the mirror.

Apparently he had blue eyes. There were tiny cuts along his right cheek and ear where the window glass had flown up in his face, and his bottom lip was split. He stared into his blank expression, waiting for the moment of recognition.

It didn’t come.

He sighed and pulled on his borrowed sweatpants and dark blue hoodie, both a size too big, and toweled off his wet hair. He still looked like hell, but at least he wouldn’t make a mess of Sunny’s house by walking through it.

J.B. was waiting for him in the kitchen, a small room with yellow wallpaper and dated cupboards. He sat with Sunny at a round table barely large enough for the two cups of coffee and the plate full of leftovers it held, and he smiled when Spencer walked in. “How you feeling?”

Spencer ducked his head, self-conscious of the bruises and cuts visible in the uncompromising light. “Good. Thanks.”

“You’re not a good liar,” Sunny said. “C’mere, let me take a look at you.”

Something in him warmed at the words not a good liar, but he shook his head when she reached out to guide him toward an empty chair. “That’s all right, I just came down to thank you for—”

Sunny scooted her chair back and stood, pulling a plate out of the cupboard as she spoke. “Let’s get this straight, boy: I don’t like repeating myself. Now you sit down and eat and let me fix up those cuts. Then you can go on up to bed.”

Spencer sat. He accepted a plate of chicken and rice casserole and ate in silence while she took a first aid kit from beneath the sink and moved a chair between him and J.B. She waited until he’d taken a few bites before opening the kit. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Car accident?”

“Yes,” Spencer said.

She swatted his leg. “I told you you’re no good at lying. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to, but don’t lie to me.”

He looked at her, studying her sharp brown eyes and feeling like a bug underneath her microscope. She’d given him an out—you don’t have to say if you don’t want to—and that, more than anything else, compelled him toward the truth.

“I fell,” he said, simply, finally.

Sunny held his gaze a moment longer and nodded. “All right. Eat.”

The kit was well stocked; while Spencer chewed with his sore jaw, Sunny dabbed ointment on his various cuts and bruises and bandaged the larger injuries. She started with his hand, working her way up his arm and neck before gently turning his face to reach his cheek. He kept his eyes on his plate, trying to relax his tensed muscles. The casserole was good. The chicken was canned, but well seasoned, and the rice had been boiled in chicken stock instead of water. Simple ingredients, strong flavor.

He found he liked her.

“I’m gonna take a look at your head,” Sunny said, tilting his chin up with one careful finger. “You might need to go in for stitches.”

Spencer pulled away. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You couldn’t reach. Now come back here and don’t move.”

“I can do it,” J.B. offered, speaking for the first time since Spencer had joined them. He’d watched Sunny’s ministrations in silence, sipping his coffee while Spencer tried not to feel like a county fair exhibit.

Sunny leaned back in her chair to look at J.B. “How do you know a thing like that?”

“Picked it up a ways back,” J.B. said. “You know how it is.”

Sunny shrugged and turned her attention back to Spencer’s head. He’d stopped eating, and was keeping as still as possible while her careful fingers parted his hair. His breath hitched when she touched the edge of the wound, and rush of nausea made him clench his jaw shut.

“All right,” she soothed. “J.B., come here and hold his hair back. There, that’s better. Okay. It’s not as bad as I thought.”

Spencer took a shaking breath through his nose and waited out the pain. He had a feeling he’d done that before.

“The cut itself isn’t bad,” Sunny went on. “Though it’s looking pretty swollen. I’ll get you something to put on it, but you really should go in. You’ve probably got a concussion.”

“They’ll just tell me to rest,” Spencer said.

The fingers withdrew, and Spencer exhaled in relief. “You don’t need to be stubborn about it,” Sunny said, wiping her hands on a napkin.

Spencer looked up at her and tried for a smile. “Supper is delicious, ma’am. Thank you.”

“That’s all you got to say?”

Her expression wasn’t quite irritated, so he eased a bite of casserole onto his fork and lifted it between them. “If you buy a block of cheese and shred it yourself, it’ll melt more evenly. The pre-shredded stuff has starches to prevent clumping, which affects how it melts.”

She laughed, and the sound almost made the pain worth it. “Fine then. I’ll get you some acetaminophen and a cool cloth, but I’m going to be checking in on you in the morning. Don’t think you can get out of that.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“And that’s enough of that ‘yes, ma’am, no, ma’am’ nonsense. You call me Sunny or Sunny June, or you get yourself back out onto the street.”

Spencer stood, moving slowly to make sure he didn’t lose his balance, and took his and J.B.’s empty plates to the sink. There was a dishwasher tucked under the counter, so he put the rinsed dishes inside and returned to the table just long enough to take Sunny’s hand. “Thank you, Sunny June,” he said quietly, and nodded to J.B. before making his way back up the stairs to bed.

Chapter Text

Three bodies had been recovered from the destroyed LanCast building.

It took several hours to discover that much. Nate had insisted they leave the hotel as Eliot instructed, falling back on one of the contingency plans the two of them probably talked about when they were alone in the bar. Parker didn’t ask. She didn’t want to think about worst-case scenarios.

Once secured in a new hotel across town, Hardison had done whatever he usually did to get their information, and came up with a police report of the accident.

Three bodies. No identification. Awaiting coroner’s report.

They took the news in silence. They climbed into Lucille in silence, they drove to the morgue in silence, and they entered the cold building in silence. Hardison and Parker donned their FBI disguises, with Nate and Sophie wearing the appropriately stricken expressions of worried loved ones. It was late, but the badges got them in, and an assistant met them at the door and led them to the lab where the autopsies were being performed.

“Special Agent Thomas,” Hardison said, flashing his badge to the medical examiner. “This is Special Agent Hagen. We’re investigating the incident at the LanCast building.”

The medical examiner, whose nametag identified her as “Dr. M. Morton”, glanced at Nate and Sophie. “We haven’t been able to identify the victims yet. Are you hoping to find someone? I can only speak with immediate family.”

“Our son,” Sophie said in an unsteady voice. “He may have been inside the building when it—when it…”

Nate put a hand on her arm, and Hardison cleared his throat to bring the doctor’s attention back to him. 

“What can you tell us about the victims?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” She gestured at the three bodies, which her assistant had hastily covered in white cloths. “The remains were badly damaged by the fire. They were all male, all aged late-twenties to mid-thirties.”

“Anything else?” Parker asked, her stomach dropping. “Height? Clothes? Anything they may have had on them?”

“These two are around 6 feet tall. This one is shorter, 5’7” or 5’8”.” Dr. Morton indicated the body in the middle and frowned when Sophie gave a little gasp of dismay. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Does that match the description of your son?”

Sophie nodded, pale-faced and trembling.

Dr. Morton gave her a sympathetic look and lifted an evidence bag from the tray at the body’s feet. “We found this on him,” she said, holding it out to Sophie. “Do you recognize it?”

They all leaned in, and Parker felt the heat leave her body.

Eliot’s necklace.

Sophie’s knees gave out. Nate caught her as she fell, but she sank to the ground with her face in her hands, shaking. “It’s him,” she sobbed, her voice muffled. “He’s ours. It’s Eliot.”

A strange, distant buzzing filled Parker’s ears, and for a moment, it was all she could hear. Hardison spoke beside her, and Sophie went on crying, but the words were lost to the static hum inside her head. The doctor asked them something, and Nate stared straight through her as if she didn’t exist. He wasn’t old enough to be Eliot’s dad, but suddenly he looked it.

They can’t handle it, said a cold, detached voice in her brain. They’re falling apart. Who’s going to hold them together?

Eliot. But Eliot was gone, and Eliot couldn’t be gone, and it didn’t matter whether he was gone or not, because he wasn’t here.

Parker was.

She blinked, and all the noise slammed back into her, and her brain caught up to what Dr. Morton was saying.

“—so sorry I have to ask, but it would help if we could get a DNA sample to verify his identity.”

“Yes,” Parker said. “A DNA sample. I’ll just—this is a shock for them. I’m going to take them out and give them a moment.”

Dr. Morton nodded. “Of course. Take all the time you need.”

Parker glanced at Hardison, who was blinking at the body under the sheet, his eyes wide and wet. She put her hand on his shoulder to turn him away. “Sir,” she said to Nate. “Ma’am. Let’s go. We can talk outside.”

Nate looked at her, but there was an emptiness in his eyes that made her feel tiny and hopeless. “Sir,” she repeated. “Please come with me.”

“Sophie,” he murmured, breaking eye contact with Parker to crouch at Sophie’s side. “Come on, honey. Stand up.”

“I don’t want to leave him,” Sophie said, her voice thick and broken. “Please, he can’t stay here, not with these men. Please, can’t we—?”

Parker took Sophie’s elbow and pulled her gently to her feet, guiding her toward the door. Nate and Hardison followed, but Parker didn’t look back. She had to get them out. 

Eliot would get them out.

She brought them to the van, and took the driver’s seat after getting them safely inside. Hardison was crying now, too, but Nate sat in absolute, unmoving silence. She drove to the hotel, parked, waited for someone to open the door.

No one did.

“We don’t know,” Hardison said after a few minutes. His face was dry, but his voice still sounded uneven. “He could have lost the necklace. It doesn’t prove anything.”

Sophie shook her head, but had to try twice before she could get her words out. “He would have called. He would have found us if he wasn’t…”

Dead. The word slammed itself against the inside of Parker’s skull, over and over again like a security alarm she hadn’t accounted for.

Dead, dead, dead.

Adapt to the situation, the voice in her head said. First things first. Take care of your team.

She opened her door. Hardison followed her, helping Sophie from the back, but Nate stayed where we was in the passenger seat. Parker moved around the van to open his door. He didn’t look at her.

“Go inside,” she said, her voice low and steady. “We’re not done.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Lancaster knew about us,” she said. “He set a trap for Eliot and me. We have to finish this, or he’ll keep coming after us. After Hardison and Sophie.”

He looked up then, his eyes still hollow, his hands loose in his lap.

“This is what Eliot would do,” Parker said.

Nate lifted one hand and set it over his face. He took a breath, two, and exhaled so heavily that his shoulders shook.

“What would Eliot say if it was one of us?” he asked.

Parker shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been one of us.”

“What does it say about me that I couldn’t stop this?” Nate asked, and Parker heard the unspoken again in the way his voice hitched at the end.

“I don’t know,” Parker whispered. “But we need you. Lancaster is going to try again, and we need you.”

Nate nodded, dropping his hand once more. He stood stiffly and followed the others across the parking lot toward the door.

Parker watched them go, slipping her hand into her pocket to remove the evidence bag she’d taken when Dr. Morton’s back was turned. She opened it, picked out the necklace, and clasped it around her neck, tucking the cold metal charm under her shirt so it laid flat against her skin.

Then she followed what was left of her team inside the hotel.

Chapter Text

That night, Spencer dreamed of faces he didn’t know.

Golden hair and the smell of jasmine and graphite; large, warm hands gripping bottles of orange soda, stretching out to grasp his palm, pulling him close until their shoulders bumped together. A soft voice, speaking in a lilting accent that soothed his anxieties, made him smile. Sharp blue eyes watching him, seeing him, and not looking away.

It was comfortable, at first. Familiar in a way that made him ache with loneliness, but left him feeling content. But then the dreams shifted, filling his mouth with the taste of blood and sweat and fear, and he laid still on his bed/bunk/ledge/grave—the location kept changing—and tried to breathe as silently as possible while feverish shivers wracked his body. He wanted to get up, to cry out, to go back to his undeserved home, but he couldn’t move.

And then the images pulled together, refocusing on the memory of the woman with golden hair. A photograph. She was looking over her shoulder, frozen, walking toward—toward something, toward... a plan, something he knew, something he had to stop. She was in danger. God, she was in danger, and he was just lying there—

He thrashed awake, throwing himself upright as his legs tangled in his sheets, panting, sweating, desperately trying to hold the image of her face in his mind.

But it was gone. For a long moment, he sat leaning over his bent knees, breathing through the pain in his head and his back and his hands, his eyes squeezed shut against the unfamiliar room. Training took over, and he worked his way through each part of his body, relaxing tense muscles and slowing his frantic heartbeat until he could open his eyes with the certainty that they would be dry.

 Concussions cause heightened emotions, said a clinical voice in his head. Less control. Greater risk.

To himself, or the woman?

He threw off his blankets, pulled on pair of jeans from the dresser, and eased down the stairs on silent feet. The clock on the stove read 4:12 AM, but that was fine. It was better to do this early, while everyone was still asleep.

He had to go back to the building. It was his only clue, and if she was the one he’d left behind... It didn’t matter if the men after him were still there, if they were waiting for him to return—none of it mattered. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault.

She deserved better. But if he was all she had, he had to try.

He retraced his journey from the night before with little difficulty; he’d checked their back trail frequently, compulsively, and the route was easy to recognize. He went at a jog despite his pounding head and throbbing ankle, his senses trained on the shadow of the burned-out building ahead. Reflective police tape threw the street light back at him, winking and taunting as he drew closer. Everything was still.

He forced himself to slow then, creeping through the shadows as he circled the building, searching for any sign of the men who’d tried to kill him. The firefighters and police had already gone, leaving the block in eerie silence that did nothing to soothe the anxiety churning his stomach. It appeared to be empty. He moved toward a collapsed wall, searching out a path through the debris.

He didn’t know what he was looking for. A room, maybe, something that had survived the fire—some clue that she’d been there. Some clue that she’d made it out. He cleared the ground level and moved toward the stairs, patting the soot from his clothes. He would have to replace them when this was over; there was no way they’d come clean.

A hand touched his shoulder. Faster than he could think, Spencer grabbed it and heaved, dropping his center of gravity to lift and throw the body connected to the hand. There was a grunt as the body landed at Spencer’s feet, and he crouched to put pressure on his assailant’s shoulder to hold him down.

His grip faltered when he took in the man’s face. “J.B.?”

“You’ve got some impressive reflexes,” J.B. coughed.

“You followed me?”

J.B. rubbed his wrist, wincing as Spencer held out a hand to help him up. “Heard you leave, and I thought you shouldn’t be out on your own. Head injuries don’t always make for the best decisions.”

“I’m fine,” Spencer said. “You can go back.”

“This place doesn’t exactly scream fine,” J.B. said, lifting his eyebrows.

Spencer turned back to the stairs. “I just have to check something.”

“Maybe I can help,” J.B. said. “There was a report on the fire last night. I saw it on the news.”

Hope and fear clenched in Spencer’s stomach. “Were there any—was anyone—” He took a breath, swallowed hard. “Did they find anybody inside?”

J.B. hesitated, and the hope splintered into dread. “They said there were three people inside… they didn’t make it out in time.”

The floor slanted beneath his feet. He staggered, straightened, stepped toward the stairs—and then his knees were on the ground, and his breath was coming in sharp, shallow pants, and his head felt like it was splitting in two. J.B. crouched at his side, his hands on his shoulders, but his words sounded distant.

“Breathe, Spencer. We don’t know for sure—”

“I left her.” The words dragged themselves out of the hollow in his chest, up his raw throat, over and over again as the realization sank into his bones. “I left her. I ran away and left her.”

“Who?” J.B. asked.

Spencer raked his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. I can’t remember—I can’t—” He fought through the jumble of emotions battering his brain, dug for memories of her, of her name, anything—and she smiled at him beneath a headband of reindeer antlers, and put a santa hat on his head—she took a bite of the donut he wanted, and he let her have it—she jumped out of a window, and he caught her.

She’d trusted him to protect her and he left her to burn alone. Had she cried? Had she damned him? He wouldn’t have blamed her—he damned himself.

Her phantom screams echoed in his ears, and he folded in on himself, pressed his forehead against his knees, and wept.

J.B stayed with him until his body stopped shaking. He didn’t know how long it was, and he didn’t remember getting up, but when he came back to himself, J.B. had his arm draped over his shoulders and was guiding him out of the building. They managed that way, Spencer leaning more and more heavily as they walked, until they finally stumbled up the stairs to Sunny’s place. Somehow, they went further, all the way up to Spencer’s borrowed room, where J.B. laid him gently on his borrowed bed and told him to get some rest.

He didn’t.

Hours passed, and no one disturbed him. He laid where he’d been put, staring up at the ceiling and trying to hold on to the memory of her face. He couldn’t see her anymore, and that hurt, but at least her screams had faded.

The rest of the house was waking up. He heard their footsteps downstairs, the echoes of their voices, Sunny’s loud laugh. He wanted to stay where he was, but Sunny had opened her home to him, and he would earn his keep. His clothes were blackened, so he changed again and shoved his cash into his pocket. He would buy new clothes to replace the ones he’d ruined, and the rest would go to Sunny.

It was still early—before 8, some instinct told him—but he smelled coffee as he came down the stairs, and the sounds of something frying filled him with a pleasant feeling he didn’t deserve. Sunny looked up from the stove when he came into the kitchen and nodded to the counter. “Coffee’s ready. Help yourself.”

J.B. was at the tiny table with another man, who Spencer assumed to be Miguel. They both had their own mugs already, and J.B. nodded when Spencer looked their way, but Miguel scowled. “¿Este es el chico nuevo?” he said, his voice thick with disapproval. “Duerme hasta tarde.”

“Spencer, Miguel,” J.B. said, shooting a reproachful look at the other man. “Don’t mind Miguel. He takes a while to warm up to newcomers.”

Spencer took an empty cup from the counter and poured himself some coffee. “No es un problema,” he murmured. “Pero no duermo mucho. 90 minutos al día es todo.”

“There you go, Miguel,” J.B. laughed. “No more complaining that no one speaks Spanish.”

Huh. Apparently he spoke Spanish, too. He took a drink to give his hands something to do and studied Miguel over the rim of his mug. He was a small man, compact, built like a wrestler, and he glared at Spencer like he wanted to do more than talk. 

“Settle down,” Sunny said, waving a wooden spatula at them. “Spencer, don’t get smart with him, he doesn’t know how to take it. J.B., quit stirring up trouble. And Miguel, I expect you to be civil, d’you understand? Now get your plates and get some eggs, and go eat them in the other room where you won’t be in my way. I got work to do.”

Miguel held Spencer’s gaze as far as the stove, where he turned to whisper up into Sunny’s ear. She swatted him with spatula. “You don’t make that decision, Miguel,” she snapped. “I say who stays. Now get, or I won’t feed you.”

He accepted a plate full of scrambled eggs, took some toast from a plate beside the coffee pot, and elbowed past Spencer on his way out of the room. J.B. followed, smiling an apology as he accepted his own food, but Spencer hesitated at the counter. “I’d like to help out,” he said awkwardly. “If you have anything that needs cleaning or fixing, I can—”

“Eat first,” Sunny said. She piled eggs on a plate and held it out to him, her eyes dark and sympathetic. “J.B. told me you went out this morning. Said you got some bad news.”

Spencer looked away, his gaze following Miguel out of the room. “You’ve been very kind to me. I don’t want there to be any trouble.”

“Like I told Miguel.” Sunny took his left hand and pushed the plate into it. “I make the decisions in this house.”

He took the plate, but before he could say anything else, a thump in the other room made him turn. J.B. leaned into the kitchen, a frown creasing the skin on his forehead. “Sunny,” he said, his voice grave. “They’re back.”

Sunny turned off the stove, letting out an impressive string of curses as she grabbed the baseball bat from beside the door. Spencer set his plate and mug on the counter and hurried after her, adrenaline spiking through him. “Who is it?”

“Stay inside,” Sunny said. “Eat your breakfast. This won’t take long.”

J.B. flattened himself against the wall to let her pass and shot a concerned look at Spencer. “Do as she says,” he muttered. “Maybe get the first aid kit ready.” He ducked through the door after Sunny, trusting Spencer to do the sensible thing and stay out of trouble.

Spencer followed them out.

Miguel was on the top step outside the door, standing with his arms folded and his feet planted wide before a half dozen men in suits. They were tall, their muscles bulging inside their jackets, and they wore boots instead of dress shoes.

Enforcers, said a voice in Spencer’s head. Thugs for hire.

Sunny came up behind Miguel and glared down at the men. “I’ve told you before—I’m not selling. Now get off my property before I call the police.”

“I’m afraid we’re past the point of negotiation,” the man in the middle said. He took a step forward, cracking his knuckles. “I’m going to have to ask you to send your boys inside, ma’am. This is between us.”

Sunny lifted her bat, but Spencer set a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t call her ‘ma’am’,” he said quietly, guiding her back a step so he could slip between her and Miguel. Miguel’s hands were clenched at his sides, and he glanced at Spencer as he moved beside him.

The man in the middle opened his mouth, and something like fear flickered across his face. 

“Janish,” the man next to him hissed. “Is that Spencer?”

They looked at him—all of them—but it was Sunny’s shocked expression that filled his vision. Spencer cleared his throat and looked back at the man in the middle. “Walk away.”

“You know I can’t do that,” the man—Janish—said.

Behind him, J.B. moved to stand at Spencer’s back. “We’re outnumbered,” he whispered.

“Not a problem,” Spencer said.

“You’re not in the best condition to make that call,” J.B. added.

Miguel shifted his weight, and Spencer glanced at him. “¿Puedes pelear?”

“Yeah,” Miguel snorted. “I can fight. Can you?”

Spencer looked at the men again, analyzing their stances, their positions, their strengths and weaknesses.

And for the first time since waking up in that burning building, he knew exactly what he was capable of.

They came at once, surging forward and rushing up the stairs. Bottlenecking themselves—they were the muscle, not the brains—Spencer moved unhurriedly down a step and dodged the first flying fist. With a jerk, he grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him in, propelling him up a step and leaving him for Miguel. He met the next attack with a block and a cross, knocking his opponent backwards and off balance, pushing him back into his companions. He had the high ground, and they hesitated.

That was all he needed.

He threw one over the railing and knocked the second down with a jab to the throat, and then J.B. was flashing past him to take the third. That left only Janish, who had stayed back to watch the fight unfold.

Spencer stalked down the last few steps, circling to put the other man’s back to the house. “Do I know you?”

“Serbia, ‘06,” Janish growled. “You beat me to the Mestrovic collection and cost me my finder’s fee. I owe you for that.”

He lunged, but Spencer side stepped and caught him in the jaw with a right hook. When he staggered, Spencer followed up with another blow before he could recover. “Walk away,” he said again, his voice a growl.

Janish flew at him. A punch, a dodge, another—block—counter—Spencer moved without thinking, letting his reflexes do the work. He recognized the technique Janish was using, even if he couldn’t remember the name, and it meant something—something in the back of his mind, something he would have used if he could. If he could only—

A jab got through his guard, catching him on the right cheek and snapping his head back—

And he was in the room again. He’d gotten inside the new LanCast building, and there were three men, not one, not Janish—he’d expected Janish to be there, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t have time to worry about that because he had to find her, but there was no furniture, nothing he could use to put between him and the other men, and he didn’t have time to deal with them. He hit one, pushed him away, turned to face the second, stepped back to avoid a clawing hook that caught his chest instead. The man tried to grab his shirt but got only his necklace, and he felt the chain snap as he pulled away. He’d get it later; she was more important. He took a punch to the face—where had that come from?—and swung at the third, but he missed, so he went back to the first for another block, block, counter, another jab, a hit to the stomach—he tried to come back with a low punch, but hands grabbed his arms and held them behind his back, and then there was the sound of a rumble and a crash, and a blast of heat that knocked him into the window, through the window, and he was falling—

“Stand down,” a voice barked in his ear. “Stand down, soldier!”

Spencer’s body went rigid. His spine snapped straight, his breath coming in ragged gasps that he fought to get under control without moving his shoulders. J.B. had both hands on his upper arms, his face so close their foreheads almost touched. His hands were wrenched behind his back, but the pressure on them eased when he stopped moving, and Miguel stepped into view with a wary frown.

“How did you know that would work?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows at J.B. “How did you know he was a soldier?”

“Maybe not a soldier,” J.B. said. He was studying Spencer’s face, his brows furrowed, his eyes sharp and clinical. “But ex-military for sure. You get a feel for that. Spencer? Are you with me?”

“What happened?” Spencer rasped.

J.B. gave a half-hearted smile. “You got into a fight with a concussion, and it didn’t go well. I tried to warn you.”

Moving hurt, but he turned his head to survey the empty yard. “Where are they?”

“They left. After seeing what you did to Janish—”

Spencer paled. “I—I killed…?”

“No.” J.B.’s grip on his arms tightened. “You scared him away. You made Ben Janish hesitate, and that was enough for the others.”

“It was enough for me,” Miguel grumbled, rubbing his jaw. “You went into a trance or something, man. You wouldn’t stop hitting Janish, and when I got close, you hit me, too.”

A wave of nausea hit him like a train, and he pulled free of J.B.’s grasp so he wouldn’t get sick on him. “Sorry,” he choked out, but his vision dimmed, and he had to reach out for J.B. again to keep upright.

“Come on,” J.B. said. “Let’s get you inside before you keel over on the lawn.”

To his surprise, Miguel moved to his other side and slipped Spencer’s arm over his shoulders, and the three of them hobbled back up to the house without speaking. Sunny was still standing on the top step, her face set in a frown, but she moved aside when they approached. 

“Get him up to bed,” Sunny said. “We’ll talk when he’s had some rest.”

Spencer passed out before he could argue.

Chapter Text

He dreamed of the blonde woman again. She sat at the edge of his bed, poking the bruises on his side while he struggled to keep his coffee in his stomach. 

“Does this hurt?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Everything hurts.”

She pulled a combination lock out of the air and started fidgeting with it. “Why are you calling yourself Spencer?”

“Isn’t that my name?”

“I guess,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “That’s what those other guys called you. Janish. You knew him.”

His eyes were heavy, but he fought to keep them open, afraid she’d disappear if he let them close. “I don’t remember.”

“He’s connected to this,” she said. “To me. He’d have answers.”

If it didn’t hurt so much, he would have shaken his head. “I don’t want answers.”

“You can’t come home if you don’t know where it is.”

He did close his eyes then. It wouldn’t be home without her.

“He’ll come back,” she said, ignoring his reaction. “He’ll try to hurt Sunny.”

“I won’t let him.”

She poked his head, and he let out a groan. “You may not be able to stop him.”

“Then what do I do?” he demanded. “Go after him? After his boss? I hunt them down, and I’m just as bad as them.”

“Being bad isn’t all that bad,” she said.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

For a long moment, she was quiet, and when he opened his eyes he feared she’d be gone. But she was still perched beside him, still fiddling, though now there were three locks instead of one. “You and me,” she said softly. “We do the hard things. The things the others can’t do.”

“I don’t want to be bad,” he whispered.

“You might have done bad things,” she said. “That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

She prodded his aching ribs, and he put his hand out, hoping to feel her—but she wasn’t really there, of course she wasn’t, and his palm slid off his side to rest on the mattress. He was so tired. If he could just get some sleep...

“I think he’s finally out,” said a faint voice, and Spencer turned his head toward it.

“J.B.,” he murmured.

“Guess not,” J.B. sighed. “Go to sleep, Spencer. You need to rest.”

“Janish has come by before?” he said.

“On and off for a couple weeks,” Sunny answered. Spencer opened his eyes and found J.B. on a wooden chair beside the bed, with Sunny folding laundry across the room. She wasn’t looking at him directly, and that made him want to curl back up and pretend to sleep.

He propped himself up on an elbow instead. “What do they want?”

“They want me to sell the house,” Sunny said, her attention on the clothes. “Offered me three times what the place is worth, and when that didn’t work, they tried to say I didn’t really own the place, but I have the paperwork to prove it, so I guess now they’re resorting to threats.”

“Why?”

She lifted her gaze, hard and hurt, and stabbed him with it. “You tell me.”

He let the accusation cut, taking a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that he could feel remorse for his part in whatever was going on. Guilt was good; it meant he wasn’t totally lost. But then he sat up, moving his legs over the side of the bed, and waved J.B. off when he tried to push him back down.

He had work to do.

“I know Janish,” Spencer said to Sunny. “At least, I did. I don’t remember exactly, but—”

“Your head injury,” J.B. said.

Spencer shot him a wary look, and J.B. nodded to himself. “I thought so. You said you fell? Judging by that wound, you definitely hit your head hard enough to cause some memory loss. Pair that with the trauma of losing someone close to you, and you’ve got a pretty good recipe for retrograde amnesia.”

“Let me guess,” Spencer said in a dull voice. “You picked that up when you picked up how to stitch a wound and how to recognize military mannerisms.”

He gave a sheepish shrug. “Yeah, all right. Former Marine, combat medic. I’m guessing Army for you.”

Spencer shook his head helplessly, and J.B. nodded again. “The good news is that your memory should return, if you give yourself the chance to heal. The bad news is I don’t think you’ll give yourself that chance.”

Spencer looked back at Sunny. “It’s not that easy. Someone tried to kill me, after—” After they killed the woman, after he failed to save her. He cleared his throat and pushed on. “I don’t have much to go on. If Janish recognized me, he might be connected. Anything you can tell me could be helpful. If they’re trying to take this house from you, there must be a reason. Maybe I can stop it.”

Her eyes were still sharp, but some of the heat had gone out of her glare. “You could be anyone,” she said, folding and unfolding the same shirt, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles as she spoke. “You could be working with them.”

“I could,” he agreed quietly. “Whoever I was working with, I think it’s pretty obvious I didn’t go into that building wearing a badge.”

Sunny snorted. “I don’t care about that. You think you’re the only one I’ve taken in who had a past? Miguel’s got a record long enough to fill a city block, and he’s the sweetest boy I ever had stay here—besides J.B. But Janish… His men aren’t like that. They’re cruel. And if you’re with them…”

“He isn’t,” J.B. said before Spencer could agree with her. “Sunny, you know he’s not. You can tell as well as I can.”

The shirt folded, unfolded, folded again. “Maybe now,” she said at last. “But the fact is, that could all change when his memory comes back. We got no way of knowing.”

Spencer eased himself to his feet. “You’re right. I never wanted to bring you trouble; I’ll leave as soon as—”

“Sit down before you pass out again,” Sunny said. “I’m not going to kick you out for something you haven’t done, no matter how many red flags you got sprouting from you. Everyone deserves a chance.”

“Janish works for Stephen Lancaster,” J.B. said when Spencer stayed upright. “That name mean anything to you?”

He frowned. “The men chasing me mentioned a Lancaster. They said to call him to say one of their guys was dead—he fell out of the window with me, I think. I didn’t stick around to hear any more.”

“Probably a good idea,” J.B. said.

Sunny tossed the shirt onto a pile and moved on to a pair of socks. “How does Janish know you?”

“And why were they after you?” J.B. put in.

Spencer shook his head, rubbing absently at a sore spot on his palm. “I don’t know. But I got an idea for how to find out.”

J.B. blinked at him, then at Sunny, and groaned. “Why do I get the feeling this is going to cause me more headaches than it’ll cause you?”

“It won’t cause you anything,” Spencer said. “You and Miguel stay here to make sure Janish’s men don’t try anything again, and I’ll go track down some answers.”

“On your own?” J.B. said.

Someone had removed Spencer’s boots; he found them at the edge of the bed and sat to put them on. “Got a feelin’ that’s not new to me,” he said, his eyes on his feet. He glanced up at Sunny as he tied the laces. “Do you have any idea why they want your house? Anything in the history of the place? Maybe the land it’s on?”

“I wish I knew,” Sunny said. “It’s just a house. Isn’t even that old—my parents rebuilt it in ‘93. They owned the original, but it was torn down ages ago. They left the new house to me when they passed. There’s nothing here Lancaster could want.”

Nothing obvious. Nothing in the building itself, probably—it was more likely to have something to do with the grounds. “How big is the lot?”

Sunny waved at the window. “The yard, that’s it. The original house was smaller, but we added on. I’m telling you, though, there’s nothing of value here. They had to dig out the foundation to pour a new basement. We’d have found anything worth finding.”

The pain in Spencer’s head had returned—or intensified, it was hard to tell which—and he closed his eyes against the overhead light while he tried to gather the information into something useful.

You know what to do, said the voice in his head, which sounded suspiciously like the blonde woman.

He sighed. “J.B.,” he said, opening his eyes. “Where can I find Lancaster?”

Chapter Text

Stephen Lancaster sauntered through the doors of his downtown office building and set his Stetson brim-down on the receptionist’s counter. “Howdy, miss,” he said, winking at the brunette behind the desk. It was a new girl, one he hadn’t fully charmed yet, but the smile she beamed back at him said she was well on her way to falling for him.

“Mr. Lancaster,” she said, her voice pleasantly low, almost husky. “You’re in a good mood—I was worried after what happened with the LanCast building.”

“That’s all being handled,” Lancaster said, affecting a grave tone. “Of course, I have the families of those workers to take care of, and I swear I’ll get them justice. I’ve been working closely with the police department to find the criminals who did this, and Chief Howard has assured me they will be persecuted to the full extent of the law.”

“Do you have any leads?” the receptionist asked eagerly.

He winked and spoke in a loose drawl. “Oh, we have a few. I can promise you this, darlin’: they won’t be troubling anybody else when I’m through with them.”

“I’m so relieved,” she said, flashing him a brilliant smile. She tapped something on her computer and looked back up at him. “You got a call from the insurance company—did you get the message?”

“I did,” Lancaster said, resting his elbows on the counter and leaning into her space. “I’m heading up to my office to call them back now. When I’m done, maybe you could block an hour or so off in my schedule and come give me your thoughts on the claim.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

Lancaster picked up his hat and settled it low on his brow, running his finger along the brim to point at her. She giggled, and he made his way to the elevator and punched in the number to his office, straightening his shirt cuffs as he went. The top floor was carpeted, and his boot heels made a pleasant tapping sound as he strode toward his door, unhurried. He had time before the phone call, enough to check in on a few other matters, and he expected good news.

He unlocked his door and crossed the cowhide rug to his desk, sighing as he sat in his overstuffed office chair. His cellphone rang—just on time—and he answered with a lazy, “That took longer than expected. Are you on your way back?”

There was a pause, and Lancaster sat up straighter, frowning. “Janish?”

“We ran into a problem,” Janish answered sullenly.

Lancaster’s good mood vanished. “What kind of problem?”

“Spencer’s alive.”

A jolt of fear—no, not fear, Lancaster didn’t feel fear—concern made him glance toward his open door. He had security; he was safe. “That’s impossible,” he said in a flat voice. “He took the same fall that killed Vinny. We know he was hurt, and we’ve been watching the hospitals. It’s more likely he crawled into an alley and just hasn’t been found yet.”

“I saw him,” Janish said. “He was at the house when we went to get the deed.”

Lancaster frowned. What did Spencer have to do with June Davidge? She hadn’t reached out to him—they’d been monitoring her—and as far as Lancaster knew, Spencer didn’t have any connections to the area. “What was he doing there?”

“He didn’t say. He didn’t seem to recognize me, but he stopped us outside the house.”

“You fought him,” Lancaster said. “So he’s dead now?”

“No,” Janish grumbled.

Hell, this was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. When Janish had first recognized Spencer the week before, walking onto the LanCast construction site with the blonde he’d since identified as the Parker, international art thief, Lancaster had taken steps to prevent his interference. It had taken some digging and quite a few bribes, but thanks to Janish’s contacts, they’d been able to get more information on the crew Spencer was running with. There were five of them, run by a man named Nathan Ford, though the identities of the other two members of the team had eluded him. It didn’t matter—he knew enough to take action.

A little bit of the best tech money could buy had disrupted their communication, but not before some hasty surveillance determined Parker’s plan to blow up the LanCast construction site. That was easy enough to work around—if he let her blow it up and then proved Ford’s team was behind it, he’d just collect the insurance payout and start over. The building was a front, anyway—he only cared about what might be beneath it. But Janish had warned him against Spencer, said they wouldn’t be able to fly under his radar for long, and that it would be better to take care of him before pinning anything on the rest of Ford’s team.

So he’d had Janish snap a picture of Parker on her way to the building, sent it to Spencer, and sat back to wait for the extra explosives Janish had planted to do their work. It meant sacrificing the men Lancaster had sent to lure Spencer inside, but if it got rid of him and the thief, it was worth it.

Except it hadn’t.

When the blast went off, Spencer had been blown clear and somehow escaped, and they’d found no trace of Parker inside the building. Ford’s team had abandoned the hotel Lancaster had been watching, and he hadn’t been able to track them down yet. Now apparently Spencer had discovered his interest in June Davidge’s property. It was only a matter of time before they came for him, and this time they’d have revenge on their minds.

Lancaster took a deep breath and studied the painting on the far wall. It was a Frederic Remington, depicting a man sitting shotgun on a wagon seat, firing a rifle at a band of outlaws on his trail. Lancaster adjusted his hat and scowled at the phone.

If Ford’s band of outlaws wanted to square off against him, then let them come.

“Get back here,” Lancaster spat. “I want this taken care of.”

“I’m on my way.”

Lancaster ended the call and eased back in his chair, thinking. This was a setback, but he had faced setbacks before. He was smarter than any group of thieves, and he had more than enough resources to make them go away. He just had to find a way to lure them out. Perhaps if he—

“Janish tell you the news?” asked a soft voice.

Lancaster sat up, his attention snapping to the corner of the room, where a man leaned casually against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. His heart made an attempt to escape up his throat. 

“How did—” Lancaster sputtered. “How did you get in?”

The man he recognized as Eliot Spencer regarded him without moving. “Door.”

Lancaster reached for his phone, but Spencer’s gaze followed his hand. “I wouldn’t,” he said quietly.

“There’s no need to do anything rash,” Lancaster said. When Spencer didn’t react, he cleared his throat and stood carefully, keeping the desk between them. “I can have security here in seconds.”

“If you think that would help,” Spencer said.

“What do you want?”

Spencer’s expression was calm, almost bored. “Answers.”

Answers. Okay, he could give answers—no matter how good Janish said this Spencer was, it wasn’t as if he could fight off all of Lancaster’s men if they charged him at once. He could stall, keep the man talking, and wait for the routine security sweep to pass by. He wasn’t in danger.

Encouraged, Lancaster set his hat on his desk and combed a hand through his dark hair. “All right,” he said. “Ask your questions.”

Spencer frowned at the hat before looking back up at Lancaster. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

“Kill you?” Lancaster echoed, holding up his hands. “I’m not trying to kill you.”

“Your men were,” Spencer said.

“You must be mistaken. What happened at my offices was an accident.”

“And my friend?” Spencer asked, his gaze hardening. “Was killing her an accident?”

Interesting. He didn’t know Parker hadn’t been inside building, which meant he probably wasn’t in contact with the rest of his team. If he didn’t know the whole truth… 

“She wasn’t supposed to be there,” Lancaster said, picking his words carefully. “I tried to save her. Whoever attacked you was sent by someone else.”

Spencer’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I believe that?”

Inspiration struck, and Lancaster forged ahead with a little more feeling. “Nathan Ford—he’s not what he seems.”

That made him pause. Lancaster hid his satisfaction, watching Spencer’s eyebrows furrow, his jaw clench. The lie wouldn’t hold for long, but if he could make Spencer hesitate, if he could get him to doubt—

“Who’s Nathan Ford?” Spencer asked.

Lancaster blinked. A spark of anger threatened his composure; Janish must have gotten Ford’s name wrong, and Lancaster didn’t suffer incompetence on his staff. But no, Janish had been sure, and he knew better than to give faulty reports. Was Spencer pretending? Trying to hide his connection to Ford? Lancaster frowned at him, studying the barely concealed confusion still evident on Spencer’s face, and noticed a purple bruise over his right ear. A head injury? He’d been in the explosion, after all—it was possible. He hadn’t recognized Janish. He didn’t seem to remember Ford.

Lancaster gambled.

“Nathan Ford is your enemy,” he said, watching Spencer’s reaction carefully. “You came to me for help against him, but before I could do anything, he lured your friend into the LanCast building, hoping to kill you both. You escaped. I’ve been searching for you, hoping to find you before Ford could finish you off.”

“You sent Janish to June’s,” Spencer said.

“On an unrelated errand,” Lancaster said. “We were lucky he found you.”

Spencer’s frown deepened. “He knew me.”

“You both work for me,” Lancaster said. “I hired you just before your trouble with Ford. You and Janish have never been friendly, though, and I’m afraid Janish took advantage of the situation and tried to get in a few cheap shots. Believe me, he will be reprimanded.”

Spencer shook his head, his expression closing up, and Lancaster pushed on before he could withdraw. “Think about it. You found your way back to me, didn’t you? Part of you must have realized that you were meant to be here. I can help you against Ford. I can help you get revenge.”

“Revenge?” Spencer echoed in a hollow voice.

“It’s only a matter of time before he comes after you again,” Lancaster said. “I can protect you. I can help you fight back.”

Spencer swallowed. “What would you need from me?”

“A plan,” Lancaster said. “Your expertise. Help me set a trap for Ford, help me lure him here, and we’ll make sure he never hurts anyone else again.”

For a long moment, Spencer didn’t react. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “What about June?”

“I need her property,” Lancaster said. “One way or another, I’m going to get it. But with you on my payroll, I’d be willing to entertain alternate measures.”

“You mean you’d send me instead of Janish,” Spencer said.

Lancaster smiled. “It would be the quickest way to get what I need, and the best way to ensure June Davidge isn’t bothered again. Janish is good at what he does, but from what I hear, you’re better. What do you say?”

There was a pause, but the interest on Spencer’s face was clear. Lancaster held out his hand, hiding his grin, congratulating himself on another victory snatched from defeat. It was how he did things—how he’d always done things. When other men hid from their troubles, Lancaster faced them head on. He was a bull in a field of sheep. And with Eliot Spencer at his side... 

He’d be unstoppable.

“What do you need from June?” Spencer asked, pushing away from the wall.

“The deed,” Lancaster said. “There’s something I’m looking for, something that may be buried on her property. I’ve checked all the other places it might be, and the Davidge land is the last.”

“What is it?”

Lancaster nodded to his hand, and Spencer came forward, hesitated, and took it.

“Welcome aboard,” Lancaster said, grinning. “Now. What do you know about Jesse James?”

Chapter Text

Nate had thought the world was ending after Sam. He went through the motions for a while, trying to do what he thought he was supposed to do, what Maggie needed him to do, what Sam would want him to do. He did try. But he couldn’t hold all that pain and anger and hatred, and eventually, everything fell apart around him. He hadn’t ever hoped that things would be all right again, and if he was honest with himself, part of him didn’t want them to be. It wasn’t fair that he could just pick up and move on without his son. It wasn’t right.

But they’d done it for him. The team, who he didn’t want, who he loved and admired in spite of himself, they’d brought him back to life against his will. They’d made him see that he still had a purpose. Worth. Family.

And now…

It turned out the world could end more than once.

They’d gotten separate rooms at the new hotel, but they all congregated in Nate’s—just like Boston, just like always—gathering around him, cutting off his escape before he could make it. No one slept. No one spoke. They sat together through the night, staring into the emptiness that Nate had almost lost himself to years before, unable to see a path through it.

They’d discussed this—he and Eliot, in private, one of the times Nate had retreated to the bar to contemplate the things he didn’t tell the others. Eliot joined him sometimes, sitting between Nate and the door with a book or a beer. As long as he was quiet, Nate usually appreciated the company. But he’d come down one night when Nate was several glasses into a fresh bottle, a beanie pulled low over the new stitches on his eyebrow, and sat too close for Nate to ignore him.

“We have to talk about it,” he’d said.

Nate had tried to change the subject, but Eliot wouldn’t let it go. “I need to know you have a plan.”

“That’s my job,” Nate had told him.

But Eliot had just looked at him, his eyes calm and clear. “When it happens,” he’d said—not if, when—“Leave the body. It’s not worth anyone else getting hurt. What happens to it doesn’t matter to me. Get them out, get them safe, regroup, re-plan. Promise me.”

And because it was Nate, because he couldn’t handle having this conversation in anything but hypotheticals, and because he was Jimmy Ford’s son, he’d said, “Yeah, sure. If you die on the job, I promise to leave your body behind.”

He’d said it sarcastically, but Eliot had nodded like it was a real agreement, like he expected follow-through. “It’ll be bloody, Nate,” he’d said, lowering his voice, his head bowed slightly so he was looking up at Nate beneath his hat. “I don’t want the others to see. Do you understand?”

And he had, then. And he hated it, and he put it from his mind, telling himself it would never happen.

He’d been just as powerless to stop it as he had been with Sam. It may not have been his fault directly—Eliot had made the choice to go into that building, without Nate’s orders—but Nate had picked the case. Nate had kept them working past that first job. Nate had relied on him to protect the others at the expense of his own safety.

And now, somehow, he was supposed to keep them going.

The sun rose bright and uncaring through the hotel window, and Parker stirred from her spot at Hardison’s side. “I want to finish this,” she said, looking directly at Nate, her voice a challenge.

“How can we?” Sophie asked. “We have the funeral to plan. Someone should track down his family.”

“No funeral.” Nate’s words were low, but they all heard. Their silence was painful.

Sophie’s eyes welled up again. “Nate, we have to—”

“He didn’t want one,” Nate said.

“I don’t care what he wanted.” Sophie glared at him, her lower lip trembling. “We’re not just going to let him disappear. He deserves to be remembered. Honored.”

“His first priority was keeping us safe,” Nate said. He met Parker’s gaze and gave her a small nod. “Lancaster came after us, and he’ll try to come after us again. We’re not going to let it happen.”

“Then we finish the job,” Hardison said, his voice soft and raw. “Without Eliot?”

Nate summoned his best attempt at confidence. “We finish it for Eliot.”

And then… Then, when he was sure the others were safe, the world could end again. 

The plan, for the most part, was unchanged: gather information, get close to Lancaster, and find proof of his wrongdoings. It was the timeline that worried Nate now.

“What does Lancaster want most?” he asked, echoing their conversation from a few days before.

Sophie was markedly less animated than when she’d answered the first time. “He idolizes folk figures from the Old West... Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill. He’s tried to build up a reputation as some kind of outlaw hero.”

“Right,” Nate said. “He says he steals the deals away from his competition. He wants people to think of him as respectable businessman with a dangerous side. The law doesn’t apply to him because he sees himself as the next Butch Cassidy. So he’s after something, something to make others see him the way he does. It goes beyond using cheap construction materials—that’s just his way of saving money. What’s he saving it for?”

“He’s been buying up a ton of properties over the last year,” Hardison said dully. His laptop was open, and Nate watched him switch from a page full of Eliot’s aliases to a tab featuring Lancaster’s company records. “But I can’t see a pattern in them. They’re different types of properties, residential, commercial, everything, and they’re all over the city.”

“Okay,” Nate said. “So he’s looking for something. Hardison, find what those properties have in common. Then all we have to do is give it to him.”

He stopped himself from thinking too far beyond that.

“What can I do?” Parker asked, appearing at his elbow. He didn’t have the energy to startle, but he took a moment to inhale and hold his breath before answering.

“You have to stay here,” he said at last.

Her eyes flashed. “No. I can’t just—”

“You’re burned,” Nate said. “If you walk into Lancaster’s offices, he’ll know it’s us. We’ll never have a chance.”

“Then I’ll make sure he doesn’t see me,” Parker said desperately. “Nate, please, I can’t stay behind.”

He wanted to argue. It was smarter to leave her behind where she’d be safe, where she couldn’t be used against them—but then Sophie was moving to stand beside her, and Nate knew he’d lost the fight before it started.

“She’ll go in disguise,” Sophie said.

“Through the vents,” Parker added.

Hardison spoke without looking up from the computer. “Either we factor her into the plan, or she’ll go in on her own. Which do you prefer?”

“All right, fine,” Nate said. “But Parker, you have to be careful. If Lancaster sees you, it’s over.”

She held his gaze, her expression hard. “I’ll be careful.”

“Hey,” Hardison said. They looked at him, and as she turned, Nate caught the glimmer of a necklace chain on Parker’s throat. 

Relief and fresh grief roughened his voice when he spoke. “Find something?”

“Yeah.” Hardison leaned back so they could see his screen. “Lancaster gave a press release this morning.”

They crowded closer, and Hardison snorted as he scanned the article. “Listen to this. ‘Businessman Stephen Lancaster has claimed to have evidence of a significant historical find, which he is in the process of authenticating...’ Bla bla bla… ‘The find is currently being held in his downtown office, which Lancaster assures readers is thief-proof.’ The audacity.”

“What did he find?” Parker asked.

Hardison went back to reading. “I don’t know… it doesn’t say. But it seems like it might be related to those properties he was buying up. I started looking through them, and they all date back to the 1800s. A bunch of them have connections to Frank James.”

“As in Jesse James’s brother?” Nate asked.

Hardison nodded. “Apparently he used to live near here. When he left the gang, he settled near Cement, Oklahoma, with—” He broke off, his eyes wide, and looked at Nate. “Cash. All their cash, from all their robberies. It’s never been found.”

“Jesse and Frank James made their name robbing supply wagons and trains after the Civil War,” Nate said thoughtfully. “They were bushwhackers—guerilla fighters working to preserve the Confederacy. Supposedly, they were trying to gather the funds to continue the war after Lee’s surrender, but Jesse was killed and Frank turned himself in, and the money was never found.”

“Lancaster thinks the money is here in the city?” Sophie asked.

Hardison’s fingers tapped over his keyboard. “Seems that way. It looks like the properties were all originally owned by the Classen family. They go back all the way to the founding of the city.”

“Do they have a connection to Jesse James?” Nate asked.

There was a pause while Hardison typed, but his frown answered for him. “I don’t see anything, but I’ll keep digging. There’s this, though.” He glanced up again, and Nate tried not to notice how drained he looked. “There’s only one building previously owned by the Classens that Lancaster hasn’t bought. It belongs to a June Davidge now.”

Nate nodded. “Then let’s go pay her a visit. Parker, find out if she knows anything about the connection between her property and the James stash. Hardison, keep looking into things here. Sophie and I will see what we can get out of Lancaster.”

“The comms are still offline,” Hardison said.

Nate held up his stolen phone. “Then we’ll do things the old fashioned way. Be careful, be aware, and call the minute you find anything. Lancaster will be expecting retaliation.”

Hardison shot a look at Parker, and the desperate fear in his eyes made Nate’s stomach turn. Parker was capable—they all were—but they hadn’t really had to worry about each other before. There had never been a threat that Eliot couldn’t handle.

He cleared his throat, swallowing his own fear. “We have to trust each other,” he said softly. “We have to trust ourselves. If we doubt, if we hesitate…”

Parker set her jaw. “That’s not going to happen. We can’t let Lancaster get away with this.”

Nate met Sophie’s eyes, still red, still filled with all the pain and shock and fear that had crippled them all, and for a moment, he considered cutting their losses. They could leave town, make it clear that they were no longer a threat to Lancaster, and try to pick up the pieces in safety. That was what he’d promised Eliot, after all—that he would keep them safe. But doing that, leaving now… it would break them. There would be nothing left for them to save.

And he wanted to save them. Needed to save them—needed to keep them going until they could continue on their own, until he could be sure that they would be okay.

And he wanted Lancaster to pay.

“We do this,” Nate said in a low voice. “And we get justice for Eliot. After that… we’ll figure it out. Okay?”

Parker nodded, then Sophie, and finally Hardison.

Nate pocketed his phone and led the way out the door.

Chapter Text

The Davidge house was only about a mile from the remains of the LanCast building, and its proximity made Parker itch with impatience. She didn’t want to be removed from the action, removed from Lancaster. She wanted to be there when his world came down around him.

She wanted him to suffer.

Our job is to help people, said the voice in her head.

“Then you help her,” Parker said out loud. “She probably needs protection—we can’t offer her that. You should have been here for this.”

The voice was silent. Parker kicked at a rock on the sidewalk and sent it bouncing toward the house, wishing she could send it through a window instead, and made an effort to control her expression before she knocked on the door. She hadn’t cried like the others, so at least her eyes weren’t red, but her face felt stiff and cracked, and she couldn’t summon a smile. She didn’t want to try.

The door opened to reveal a stocky man with a bruise on his cheek. He glanced at her, then out into the yard, and moved to close the door. “Go away.”

“Miguel!” a voice inside snapped. A tall woman with curly silver hair came up behind him and took his ear, pulling him back from the door. “You will not talk to visitors that way.”

“You said to watch for trouble!” the man whined.

“Does this nice lady look like trouble?” the woman asked. She took his place in the doorway and leveled Parker with a fierce look that didn’t seem nearly as welcoming as her words implied. “Now what can I help you with?”

“June Davidge?” Parker asked.

The fierce look deepened into a scowl. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m conducting a survey on behalf of the city,” Parker said, falling back on the story Sophie had given her as they’d left the hotel. “We’re looking into various historical sites that were previously owned by city founders. May I come in?”

June Davidge narrowed her eyes as she studied Parker’s face. “You can come in if you tell me why you’re really here.”

Parker blinked. “I said I’m with—”

“I know what you said,” June interrupted. “And I don’t believe it. I been living here my whole life and never had the city show any interest in my property. The only one who has is Stephen Lancaster, and if you’re here for him, then you can march yourself right on back and tell him I’m not interested. And if he wants to send any more of his thugs after me, I’ll—”

“He sent thugs?” Parker said, frowning. “When?”

June crossed her arms. “What’s your name?”

“Parker.”

She waited for more—maybe a surname, maybe a deeper explanation—but Parker just stared back, holding her gaze in silence.

“You better come in,” she said at last. “I got some soup on the stove, and I don’t want it to boil over.”

She turned and went inside, and for a moment, Parker thought about leaving. She didn’t have time for this. They needed to find out what was happening with Lancaster, not waste time chasing down leads in some random woman’s kitchen. If June wouldn’t cooperate, then Parker could get the information another way. She didn’t have to do this.

She needs help, said the voice. Who else is going to help her?

Parker clenched her fists at her sides, took a breath, and went in.

She noted the baseball bat beside the door with interest and approval as she followed June into a small kitchen, filled with the smells of cooking ingredients and the sound of gently simmering soup. The details hit her so hard that she stopped in the doorway, breathing heavily to keep the image of Eliot in his apron out of her mind.

“You all right, sugar?” June asked.

Parker blinked. “What? Yeah, I’m—Um, you said Lancaster sent men here?”

June waved at a little round table against the wall. “Sit down. I’ll get you a bowl of soup.”

“Oh, no, that’s not—”

“Don’t argue with me,” June said. “I need to test the soup, and you look like you could use something warm.”

Parker frowned, but took a seat where she could watch both June and the door. She caught the sound of footsteps in the hall and watched the man from earlier, Miguel, take up position beside the door again, scowling and rubbing his ear.

“The men who came by,” Parker said. “What did they want?”

June ladled some soup into a bowl and set it before her. “Eat up first. We got plenty of time.”

“Actually, I don’t—”

But June handed her a spoon, and Eliot had told her that people took their cooking seriously, and if they shared it with someone else, it meant they were sharing a part of themselves. She wouldn’t get answers if she insulted the woman’s offer, so she dipped her spoon into the soup—cheesy potato—and put it in her mouth.

“Thank you,” Parker said. “It’s good.” And because Sophie had taught her to be intentional with compliments, she added, “I like the cheese.”

“It melted nicely, didn’t it?” June said, smiling. “A new trick I just learned.”

She sat in the other chair, still watching, so Parker took another bite.

“Now tell me about it,” June said.

Parker propped her elbows on the table. “I’m looking into Stephen Lancaster, and I wondered—”

“No, no,” June said. “Not that. Tell me about what’s troubling you.”

Parker frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Something’s obviously on your mind.” June lifted a mug to her lips, and Parker caught the smell of mint tea wafting from it. “You’re hurting. It’s not good to hold that pain inside you, and sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger. So go ahead and talk to me, and then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Parker said.

“All right,” June said. “I’m not gonna force you. Just eat.”

Parker glared at her, but June got up and went to the stove, turning her back on Parker while she stirred the soup. She didn’t speak, and after a few minutes of silence, Parker found herself eating again to keep her hands moving. The soup was fine—food was just food, unless it was Eliot’s—but it did warm her. She hadn’t been hungry before, not exactly, but the more she ate, the more comfortable she felt, and the more that fullness offset the empty ache in her chest.

“Here you go, sugar,” June said, holding out a tissue. “Wipe your face. It’s all right.”

Parker started, taking the tissue reflexively and lifting it to her wet cheeks. She hadn’t felt the tears start, but now that they were there, she didn’t know how she was going to make them stop.

“He left,” she said, clenching the tissue in her free hand.

June sat back down. “Bad breakup?”

“No,” Parker said. “He died. But he shouldn’t have, and it isn’t fair. He wasn’t supposed to leave.”

“Oh, sugar,” June said, folding her hands around her mug. “I’m so sorry.”

The spoon clattered against the side of the bowl; Parker barely heard it. “I hear him in my head sometimes. The things he would say, things he would do. Does that mean I’m crazy?”

“I think it means you love him very much,” June said.

Her vison blurred, and she set down her spoon to wipe her eyes.

“What does he say to you?” June asked.

“That you need help,” Parker said, sniffing. “And that I should help you.”

June smiled. “He’s perceptive. I try not to let on, but this situation with Lancaster… it’s got me a touch worried. This house is all I have. If I lose it, I’ll lose the people I love, too.”

“He wouldn’t want that.” Parker rubbed her eyes again, taking in a shaky breath. “I don’t want that.”

June held out a new tissue. “Then I’m glad you’re here, Parker. What do you need to know?”

Parker made her way to the end of the sidewalk, turning to wave as June closed the door behind her. She’d been there over an hour, going through a box of old photographs and letters June had dug out of her basement that morning. “I was trying to figure out what Lancaster might want from this place,” June had explained. “I didn’t even know this was down here. My parents have been gone a few years now, but I haven’t made the time to go through all their things yet. I guess now’s as good a time as any.”

Parker took out her phone, holding up the papers June had given her, and tried not to fidget as it rang. After the third ring, she almost ended the call to try again, but Nate’s voice finally came over the speaker.

“Find anything out?”

“It’s definitely Jesse James’s treasure,” Parker said. “I just finished up at June’s, and she showed me a bunch of letters she’d found in her basement. Well, photocopies of letters. It looks like her parents found them a few years ago and donated them to a museum.”

“What do they say?”

“They’re love letters,” Parker said, scanning the top paper. “From someone named Elizabeth Classen.”

Nate’s voice sharpened. “From the Classens Hardison found? The ones who owned the properties Lancaster is buying up?”

“Looks like it.” Parker shuffled the papers and read over another one. “Elizabeth and Frank James were writing letters to each other, but they couldn’t be together because of Elizabeth’s family. Frank talked about wanting to take care of her and tried to get her to run away with him. He said he had money enough to give her the life she was used to, and said he’d tell her where he hid it if she’d meet him outside of town.”

“Did she go?” Nate asked.

“No. In her last letter, she said she didn’t want to disappoint her family. But then I think he gave her the money anyway, because she said something about how she had enough and didn’t want to spend anything with blood on it.”

“So Lancaster must have found the letters at the museum,” Nate said. “And figured out that Elizabeth Classen hid the money on one of her parents’ properties.”

“And June’s the only one left who hasn’t sold,” Parker said.

“Then, eventually, he’s going to go after her to get her land.”

Parker folded the papers and stuffed them into her pocket. “He already has. She said he sent some of his thugs around today, but her friends chased them off.”

“It won’t be long before he tries again.” Nate paused, and Parker heard his footsteps through the speaker as he started walking. “Hang on, I’m going to add Hardison to the call. We need more information.”

He dialed, and a heartbeat later Hardison answered, “Nate, hey, I was just about to call you.”

“Parker’s on, too,” Nate said. “What have you found?”

“Okay, yeah. I was trying to dig into Lancaster’s records, but they’re all on a closed server. I need to get into his office to get any more.”

“Sophie’s already inside,” Nate said. “How soon can you two be here?”

Hardison’s laptop clicked closed in her ear. “On my way. Parker, I’ll pick you up.”

“Hardison, you get to the servers,” Nate said. “Parker, see if you can find Lancaster’s safe. We need to see if he’s already found that money.”

“What are you going to do?” Parker asked.

Nate’s voice was low and cold, and it sent a shiver over her skin.

“I’m going to distract Lancaster.”

Chapter Text

Nate looked the part when he walked into Lancaster’s downtown office. He’d changed into a black western shirt with a matching hat, courtesy of Sophie’s lifting of one of Lancaster’s company credit cards, and his new boots gave him an extra couple inches to play with as an intimidation factor. He wanted every piece of ammunition he could use for this job.

After all, it would probably be his last.

He gave his name to the receptionist and waited while she called up to Lancaster’s office, then tipped his hat when she directed him to the top floor. The elevator blared a terrible blend of bluegrass and pop, and Nate tried not to picture the disgusted expression it would have elicited on Eliot’s face. It was almost over. He could hold on for this last little bit, just long enough for the others to do their jobs. He could give them that much.

The doors slid open, and Nate strode down the hall and into Lancaster’s office without knocking.

“Mr. Wheeler,” Lancaster said, rising from his desk and offering his hand to Nate. “My girls downstairs say you have a proposition for me.”

Nate shook his hand and sat at the offered chair across from Lancaster. “Mr. Lancaster. I hear you’re in the business of historical acquisitions.”

“I’ve been known to take an interest in various historical items,” Lancaster said, smiling. “What have you got in mind?”

Nate grinned back. “How does the lost cache of the Jesse James gang sound?”

Lancaster stilled. His smile was frozen on his face, but his eyes flashed with anger. “If you can find it. Nobody in the last 200 years has managed it.”

“Well, that’s because they’ve been looking in the wrong place.” Nate took off his hat, setting it top-down on Lancaster’s desk, taking up more space than he’d been allotted.

The smile disappeared. “And you think you know where to look?”

“I did,” Nate said, leaning back in his chair. “That’s how I found it.”

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed. He studied Nate for a moment, frowning, and then shook his head. “You didn’t find it.”

“I’m not sure you want to be calling a potential new business partner a liar,” Nate said. “Not given your own background. What’s that saying about casting stones in glass houses?”

“You’re calling me a liar?” Lancaster growled.

“Well,” Nate said. “For one, you’re making a reputation on this whole country boy thing, but your accent’s a little forced. Too much of an emphasis on the drawl, not enough on the consonants.” Sophie had pointed that one out—something about T-glottalization—Nate decided not to get into the specifics. “Based on your slip-ups, I’d say east coast. Back in the old days, I think they’d call you a tenderfoot.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Lancaster said, glowering.

“Oh, I do.” Nate’s voice was soft, barely audible. “It’s a very distinctive accent.”

Lancaster opened his mouth, but the phone on his desk cut him off with a shrill ring. “Excuse me,” he ground out, lifting the phone to his ear. His expression brightened as he listened, and a premonition of unease worked its way down Nate’s spine.

“Well,” Lancaster said, hanging up with a smile. “I suppose the ruse is up. You play a good hand, Mr. Ford, but the deck was stacked against you.”

Nate’s stomach dropped. He didn’t try to deny it—there was no point—but he couldn’t help the quick glance over his shoulder. Hardison would be in the server room by now, and Parker—

“That was my head of security,” Lancaster said. “My plan, at least, has gone exactly the way it was supposed to. The server room has locked behind your hacker, my man Janish is with your grifter, and my security team is tracking down your thief. That just leaves you, Mr. Ford.” He took in Nate’s clenched jaw and laughed. “Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t have known what you were walking into. If I do say so myself, I set a mighty fine trap.”

“To what end?” Nate asked. 

“Yours,” Lancaster said. “My sources seem to think you’re dangerous, but I have to admit I’m disappointed. You really didn’t put up much of a fight. I suppose without your guard dog—”

Nate was lunging across the desk before he could tell himself not to fall for the taunt. He didn’t care. He would take the fall if he had to, but not like this, not without beating the smirk off Lancaster’s face. He wanted to see the man bleed, see him cry and cower and beg for mercy, he wanted him to—

A hand caught his. One minute there was nothing in his vision but Lancaster’s satisfied grin, and then another man stood in the way, his fingers closing over Nate’s fist, his eyes guarded, expression blank. Nate stopped short, the desk between him and Lancaster, a spike of horrible, agonized hope rooting him to the spot.

“I told you to stay out of sight,” Lancaster snapped.

Eliot kept his gaze on Nate. “You’d rather I let him beat you up?” he said, tightening his grip on Nate’s knuckles.

Nate opened his mouth, but couldn’t form the words tumbling uselessly in his brain.

“Get back where you belong,” Lancaster said. “I can take care of him.”

Eliot stayed where he was, watching Nate with a blank expression. “You’re Nathan Ford?”

“You’re alive?” Nate whispered.

Eliot let go of his hand. “No thanks to you.”

Nate flinched; Eliot had always known how to land a good hit. 

Except… if there was anything Eliot was better at than landing punches, it was pulling them. Better than any of them, Eliot knew what guilt did to a person, and he wouldn’t use it as a weapon—not against Nate. There was more going on here.

But it was hard to figure out what that might be when the only thing Nate could think was you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive.

“Now isn’t the time,” Lancaster said. “Get back downstairs. I’ll call you when—”

“Eliot.” Nate’s voice broke over the name, so he cleared his throat and said it again. “Eliot… What happened?”

Lancaster placed his hands on the desk. “He turned on you. He works for me now, and nothing you—”

“Shut up,” Nate said. He looked at Eliot’s bruised face, at the apprehension in his eyes, and tried to read a message in them. He had to be playing some kind of angle, and if Nate could figure it out, he could play along. But he couldn’t think. His mind wasn’t working, and Eliot wasn’t giving him any hints, and he couldn’t—

“Is that my name?” Eliot asked. “I thought it was Spencer.”

Oh, God. Another rush of grief washed over him, draining him of everything except cold realization. “You don’t remember?”

“Head wound,” Eliot said, shrugging. “The memory loss is temporary. Probably. Jury’s still out on whether I want it back or not. But I’ve heard Lancaster’s version of things, and now I’d like to know yours. I’ll make my mind up from there.”

Lancaster reached for his phone. “Enough. If you’re not going to listen, I have no choice.”

Without breaking eye contact with Nate, Eliot reached out his right hand—bruised and bandaged—and yanked the phone from its cord. He tossed it across the room and spoke as if there had been no interruption. “How do you know me?”

Nate held his gaze. “I’m your friend.”

“And the others?” Eliot asked. “The hacker? The grifter? The thief? They’re my friends too?”

“Yes,” he said, scrambling for a better explanation. Our friend, our teammate, our family.

Eliot scoffed. “Then I am a criminal.”

“Eliot—”

“The blonde woman,” he said. “Who was she?”

Nate frowned. “You mean Parker? Lancaster sent you a message saying he had her, but he didn’t. It was a trap. He lured you into the LanCast building and blew it up. We thought—we thought you were—” He broke off, unable to voice it now, afraid it would somehow undo whatever miracle had brought Eliot back.

Eliot sucked in a breath. “She’s not dead?”

“He’s lying,” Lancaster said. “He’s trying to confuse you.”

“Why?” Eliot demanded.

“He tried to kill you before you could come after him,” Lancaster pressed. “He knows what you’ll do to him if you figure that out.”

“That’s not true.” Nate kept his eyes on Eliot’s, his voice firm. “You may not remember me, but I know you. I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.” A hint of desperation worked its way into Eliot’s voice, contrasting with the emotionless mask he was still fighting to keep over his face. “You don’t know what I’m capable of. The things I know how to do. I don’t remember my friends, but I remember that. What kind of a person does that make me?”

“Don’t let him confuse you,” Lancaster needled. He stood and reached for Eliot’s shoulder, but he flinched away.

Nate stayed where he was. “You’re the only one who can answer that,” he said softly. “Whatever you might have done in the past… that’s not who you are now.”

“I’ve hurt people,” Eliot said, scowling. “Stolen. Killed. You’re really going to stand there and say I’m not evil?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Nate said. “You have a past, and if you want to know what it was, I’ll tell you. But it doesn’t matter. Lancaster wants to convince you that you’re a bad guy so he can use you, but you’re the one in control here. You decide who you want to be. But I’ll tell you, Eliot—” Nate took a breath, clutching at the remains of his composure. “Whatever you’ve done, bad guy or not, you’re a good man. One of the best I’ve ever known.”

Hurt and hope flared up in Eliot’s eyes—that old, familiar battle between who he’d been and who he wanted to be. He’d been fighting it alone ever since the explosion, and Lancaster had tried to capitalize on that struggle, after everything, after everything he’d put them through.

They had to go. Now, before Nate did something Eliot would regret.

“It’s up to you,” Nate said, his voice rough. “You can stay here with him, or you can come with me—or anything else you want to do. But I’m asking you—” He swallowed, hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Please. Come home with us.”

Eliot hesitated, frowned, and then turned to Lancaster and gestured to the chair. “Take off your belt.”

“My—what?” Lancaster sputtered. “Spencer, listen to me. He’s lying, and I can prove it.”

“I got all the proof I need.” Eliot folded his arms and dipped his head toward Nate’s hat, still resting on the desk beside the broken phone. “He knows to put that crown-down.”

Lancaster blinked at him. “What?”

“Maybe I was working for you,” Eliot went on. “But I don’t have to stay with you. Now take off your belt before I decide to break your wrists instead of binding them.”

Shaking in either fear or anger—Nate couldn’t be sure which—Lancaster undid his belt and dropped it onto the desk. Eliot nudged him onto his chair, pulled his hands behind his back, and secured them with the belt. When he was satisfied, he pulled the chair against the wall and tied Lancaster’s ankles with the phone cord.

Then he straightened and gestured toward the door. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the others.”

“The others?” Nate echoed.

“Yeah. The rest of your team.”

Nate trailed him out of the office, pausing only to close the door behind them. “You know where they are?”

“I…” Eliot turned away, avoiding eye contact. “I thought you’d killed her—Parker—and I needed to find you, so I made a plan for Lancaster. He described the people you were working with, their reputations, their strengths, enough for me to set a trap. I had him put out a press release to say he’d found something valuable, and that he was holding it here in his office. I figured you’d break in to get it, and I could make my move then. Lancaster sent Janish after the grifter—”

“Sophie.”

“Sophie,” Eliot echoed. “I didn’t know who she was, but I went back over the surveillance footage from the last few days and noticed her lifting a credit card, so I figured she was involved.”

“I’ve never been so glad to have you on our side,” Nate said, surprising himself with a chuckle.

“You’re not angry?”

Nate looked at him. Tiny cuts along the right side of his face were just starting to heal, and his hair covered some of the bruising on his cheek and ear—superficial injuries hiding something so much worse. As bad as it had been for Nate and the rest of the team, at least they’d had each other. What must it have been like to wake up with no memory, wounded and alone, and have to grieve someone he couldn’t even remember?

“No, Eliot, I’m not angry.” Nate’s voice was soft, if a little uneven. “But… When Lancaster told you I was the one who set off the explosion, you didn’t believe him. Or at least, you were willing to give me a chance to explain my side of things. Why?”

Eliot kept his eyes on the ground as they jogged down the hall. “I, um... I had a dream. About you. You and—and Parker, and another woman, and a man. I can’t remember their faces, but when I saw you in Lancaster’s office, it felt...” He shrugged, faint color flushing across his face. “I dunno. Familiar.”

Nate had never seen Eliot blush before. He’d never been this vulnerable before—forced to trust someone he didn’t know, forced to admit a weakness. But he’d chosen to anyway. Part of had him remembered, had reached out and found them against all odds. When Nate had been ready to give up, Eliot had kept fighting.

Of course he had. Memories or no, this was Eliot.

God… he had to tell the others.

He reached for his phone, but Eliot put out his hand to stop him from dialing. “That won’t work—I had Lancaster set up a dampener so you wouldn’t be able to communicate with your crew. Landlines only.”

Nate couldn’t help the grin that broke across his face. He threw his arm around Eliot’s shoulders as they reached the elevator, his chest constricting at Eliot’s uncertain expression even as he leaned into Nate’s touch.

“It’s good to have you back, Eliot,” Nate said.

Tentatively, Eliot smiled.

Chapter Text

Spencer’s—Eliot’s—head ached. Actually, “ached” was an understatement—it felt like his skull was trying to crack itself in half, and Lancaster’s stupid fake western elevator music wasn’t helping. Beside him, Ford cleared his throat.

“This isn’t the right time to ask,” he said. “But I need to know what you remember.”

He hesitated. His instincts were still to hide his weakness, but Ford was... well, he wasn’t sure what Ford was, except that he was someone Spencer trusted. He could feel that clearly enough, a certainty that settled into the pit of his stomach, whispering assurances that he was safe.

He didn’t really know what to do with that.

“Start with the LanCast explosion,” Ford suggested.

Spencer frowned at him, wondering how much of his mind Ford could read, and counted the floors as they descended. “As far as I can figure, I went inside the building looking for Parker, and met a handful of Lancaster’s men. The explosion blew me through a window, and I woke up in the parking garage with Lancaster’s men trying to find me. And I ran.”

He tried to say the last part casually, but Ford shot him a curious look. “Of course you ran. What else were you supposed to do?”

Spencer shook his head. He couldn’t say the rest out loud—not to Ford. He couldn’t risk disappointing him before his memory came back. If Ford knew what he’d done… if he told him to leave…

“Eliot,” Ford said. “You did the right thing. You got away. You found us again.”

Spencer cleared his throat. “When we find Sophie,” he said, turning to face the elevator doors. “Leave Janish to me. He’s dangerous, but I’ve fought him before. I can handle him.”

“You know him?” Ford asked.

“He knows me,” Spencer admitted. “I don’t remember.”

Ford nodded. “At least we know how Lancaster found out about us. Hardison builds a good alias, but there’s nothing he can do if someone recognizes one of us.”

“Hardison is the hacker?” Spencer asked.

The doors slid open, finally, and Ford led the way into the hall. “Yes,” he said. “Hardison is the hacker. He took your loss hard… we all did.”

“Sorry.”

“Eliot.” Ford stopped, holding out a hand to catch Spencer when he tried to edge past. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Lancaster did this to you—to us—and we’re going to make sure he pays for it. You are not to blame. Not for believing Lancaster, or for working with him, or for setting the bait to bring us here. If you hadn’t, we never would have known you were still alive.”

Spencer looked away, and Ford’s grip on his arm tightened. “Is there something else?”

He might have answered—the words were there on the tip of his tongue, ready to condemn himself at Ford’s order—but the crackle of a walkie-talkie sounded down the hall, and Spencer reached out to pull Ford back against the wall.

“Fourth floor clear,” said a security guard, standing out of sight around a corner. “Moving on to the fifth.”

Spencer tugged Ford’s sleeve, and he moved with him without question, easing into a conference room on silent feet as the guard headed for the elevator. Spencer watched through a window in the door until the hallway was clear again, aware of Ford at his back, of the opportunity he was presenting if Ford turned out to be an enemy.

“He’s gone,” Spencer said.

Ford nodded. “Lead the way.”

There was no more conversation then. Spencer moved down the hall on the balls of his feet, keeping his boots quiet on the carpeted floor. Janish would be in the office at the end of the hall, where he’d told the grifter to meet him to go over Lancaster’s afternoon schedule. 

A flutter of nerves twisted Spencer’s stomach at the thought of meeting someone else who knew him, someone who had apparently mourned him. He hadn’t recognized this Sophie on the security tapes, and a large part of him felt discouraged by that.

She won’t mind, said the voice in his head. She’ll just be happy to see you.

Happy to see him. Would she be? What about the other woman—Parker, not dead, not abandoned to burn in the building Spencer had escaped from—would she be happy to see him? He couldn’t imagine she would be. Regardless of what had happened at LanCast, he’d forgotten her. She would be hurt, disappointed, and he couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t blame any of them.

A murmur of voices drifted out from under the office door, and Spencer glanced over his shoulder to make sure Ford was ready.

“I’ll go in first,” Ford offered. “Maybe we can bluff our way out. Stay here—there’s no need for you to get any more bruises if you don’t need to.”

Spencer drew back, deferring to Ford’s lead without argument or hesitation. It felt good to be following an order, he realized—an order he trusted. He watched as Ford opened the door, pressing against the wall to stay out of Janish’s sight.

“Ah,” Ford said, overly loud in the small space. “Here you are, Mr. Janish! My name is Abe Wheeler, and I’ve just come from a meeting with Mr. Lancaster. He asked for Miss Clancy here to set up the details of our new arrangement. Miss Clancy, if you please...”

“Why, of course,” said the grifter—and her voice cut through the fog in Spencer’s brain, filling the gaps with the sound of her laughter, her advice, her friendship. Her accent was southern, but subtly so, and he could hear the lilt of a British cadence in its echoes.

Sophie. God, how had he forgotten Sophie?

“Come along, Miss Clancy,” Ford said, but a heavier step sounded near the door, and Spencer shifted toward it reflexively.

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Janish said. “My orders are to keep you here.”

Ford chuckled. “Orders? Lancaster asked for Miss Clancy personally. I think that trumps any of your orders.”

“He would have checked in with me,” Janish said.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s—”

“Back up,” Janish growled. “And sit down. You’re not going anywhere.”

The door started to close, and Spencer kicked it open before Janish could shut him out. Sophie let out a cry of surprise, but Spencer didn’t look at her—he kept his attention on Janish, who had caught himself on a table and was pushing himself upright.

“Spencer,” he snarled. He had a new black eye and bruised cheek, and Miguel’s words flitted back through his mind: You went into a trance or something, man. You wouldn’t stop hitting Janish, and when I got close, you hit me, too. He couldn’t let that happen again. He needed to stay in control.

Spencer spared a second to glance at Ford, who had his arms wrapped around Sophie. She stared at him with her hands over her mouth, her eyes full of tears.

Then Janish leaped at him, and he drove focus back to the fight. 

He came at Spencer hard, aiming for his face—Spencer blocked and ducked, stepping back, and Janish drove forward to separate him from Ford and Sophie. It put Janish’s back to them, and Ford was already casting about for something to use as a weapon. But that wasn’t his job, it was Spencer’s, and Spencer couldn’t risk Janish retaliating.

He pretended to stumble, fell back, caught Janish’s hook high on his arm, and swung.

Janish went down, and stayed there.

For a moment, Spencer stood where he was, afraid to look at the others, afraid to see their reaction to his violence. But then a shift of movement pulled his head up, and he had just enough time to lower his fists before Sophie was throwing herself into his arms.

“You’re okay?” she sobbed, burying her face in the side of his neck. One hand came up to cup the back of his head, gently, her fingers resting on his hair while her other hand grasped a fistful of his shirt. She leaned back long enough to examine his face, her eyes running over every scrape and bruise, before she hugged him again. Soft words tumbled out of her in a rhythmic blend of questions and reassurances— “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

He’d lifted one hand to catch her, and he rested it on the small of her back, holding her to him as the sound of her voice settled his heartbeat.

You’re okay. You’re okay.

“Sophie,” Nate said, reaching out and adding his hand to her back. She withdrew slightly, her palms still resting on Eliot’s neck and shoulder, and turned teary eyes to him. Nate glanced at Eliot, searching for something in his expression, and said, “He doesn’t remember.”

Sophie frowned. “What do you mean?”

Spencer cleared his throat and dropped his hands to his sides. “Um... amnesia. Sorry.”

Her eyes filled again, and she blinked at Nate before pulling Spencer in for one more hug. “I don’t care what you remember,” she whispered. “I’ll fill you in on anything you’ve forgotten, and whatever I don’t know, we’ll make up. I’m just glad you’re back.”

She let him go then, and he stepped back to give her space as she wiped her eyes. “Do Parker and Hardison know?” she asked.

Nate shook his head. “We came to find you first. Parker’s still looking for the safe, and Hardison’s...”

He looked at Spencer, who forced himself not to look away. “He’s trapped in the server room.”

“Good,” Nate said. “Then we don’t have to waste time chasing him down. You know where it is? We’ll follow you.”

Spencer shot an uncertain glance at Sophie, looking for and failing to find any hints of unease in her expression. Apparently she and Nate both trusted him to take the lead on this, which meant it was time to make a tactical decision.

He cleared his throat. “I should go on my own. Lancaster has a guard scheduled to walk past his office in a little while, and as soon as they realize I’m working with you, they’ll lock the building down. You two should leave while you can.”

“We can’t,” Sophie said. “Parker’s still here somewhere, right? It’d be faster to split up to find her.”

Spencer shook his head. “If any of Lancaster’s men find you in the halls, they’ll know something’s up. They don’t suspect me yet. The smarter move is to get the two of you out now, and I’ll go after the others.”

“How long until the guards find Lancaster?” Nate asked.

“Maybe ten minutes. Maybe less.”

Nate frowned, searching Spencer’s face, and he tried his best to keep his expression open and honest. He couldn’t afford to be distrusted now. If Nate didn’t believe him…

But whatever Nate was looking for, he must have found it. He exhaled and gripped Spencer’s arm.

“You have twenty minutes, and then I’m coming back in.”

Spencer nodded.

Sophie gave him another hug, holding on a few moments longer than necessary. “Be careful,” she whispered.

He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You too. Stick to the stairs—there’s a side exit on the first floor. I’ll meet you outside.”

She rewarded him with a teary smile, and then she and Nate were hurrying through the door.

Spencer swallowed, stepped over Janish’s body, and made his way down the hallway to find the hacker.

Chapter Text

The server room was in the basement, and Spencer followed his own advice to take the stairs. He spared a few moments to clear the floor he was on first, making sure there wouldn’t be any guards to tail Nate and Sophie, and then jogged down the steps to the basement with an excuse ready on his lips. He’d keep it simple and direct, clean and quick—as long as the hacker didn’t blow the story by reacting to his presence the way Sophie had.

Hardison. The name didn’t elicit any kind of emotional reaction, but then, neither had any of the others. It had taken seeing Nate’s face and hearing Sophie’s voice to bring back the vague memories of their presence in his life—feelings, mostly, and the desperate need to get them out of the building. Spencer would have to lure the guards away before Hardison saw him if he wanted to avoid a fight, and if he only had twenty minutes—fifteen, now—that would be the quickest way to do things.

The security guards had reported up to Lancaster the moment Hardison reached the basement. Per Spencer’s directions, they’d stayed out of sight until Hardison was inside the server room, and then they’d simply closed the doors behind the hacker and left him trapped in the glass-walled room. He’d be safe there—Spencer’s orders were not to engage Ford’s team beyond capturing them—but his anxiety rose with every step he descended. It was almost over. Once he got Hardison and Parker free of the building, they could regroup, figure out a new plan, and then... what? He’d either go back with them, wherever back was, or to Sunny.

Assuming they’d even want him. Nate and Sophie had seemed glad to see him, but that was only because they didn’t know what he’d done. What would Parker think when she found out he’d left the LanCast building while believing she was inside? The fact that she wasn’t was irrelevant; if it was his job to protect them, he’d failed.

What good was he to them if he couldn’t do his job?

The door to the basement loomed at the bottom of the stairs, and he shoved down his misgivings and focused on the task at hand. He hadn’t been in the basement himself, but he’d studied it on the security tapes; the layout was mostly open, giving anyone in the server room a visual of the hallway leading to the stairwell. If he wanted to avoid Hardison’s attention, he’d have to call the guards toward him and hope they didn’t think it was suspicious.

And if they did, he’d handle it. Either way, he was getting Hardison out of that basement.

Spencer blew out a breath at the bottom of the stairs and pulled open the door, standing out of sight of the server room. “Hey,” he called, drawing the attention of all three guards stationed in the hall. “Why aren’t you answering your radios?”

One of the men moved toward him. “What do you mean? We haven’t heard anything.”

Spencer opened his mouth to answer, but movement over the guard’s shoulder caught his attention. Two more men were crouched by the support beam outside the server room, their backs to the stairs.

Unease clawed at Spencer’s gut. “Who are they?”

“Contractors,” answered the first guard. “Something about checking the foundation. What about the radios?”

Spencer spoke without taking his eyes off the men. “Come here. Let me check your frequency.”

The nearest guard came over, but the others stayed where they were. Spencer reached out a hand to take the man’s walkie-talkie and switched the frequency. “Ground level,” he said. “This is basement level. Radio check, over.”

“Basement level, this is ground level,” came the reply. “Roger that. Over.”

“Standby,” Spencer said.

“Roger.”

Spencer lowered the walkie-talkie.“You were on the wrong channel,” he snapped. “You two, get over here so I can fix it before Lancaster comes down here himself.”

He backed up, inviting the first man to follow him through the door and letting it close behind him. He didn’t have the time to choke him out, so he resorted to a quick, sharp blow to the side of his head, catching him when he crumpled and easing him to the floor beside the stairs.

The other two were at the door before he could do much more than straighten up. One shouted before Spencer’s elbow silenced him; the other reached for his walkie-talkie, which only gave Spencer an easier opening.

He took their radios and clipped them to his own belt, then stepped through the door and made his way across the hall toward the men. There was a strangled sound from inside the server room, but Spencer kept his gaze on the threat.

And they were a threat. He could feel it in his gut, and he wasn’t about to second-guess that now. Not if they were doing what he thought they were doing.

One of them lifted his head, setting his hand on the other’s shoulder. “Problem?” he asked.

Spencer nodded at the support beam. “What are you doing?”

“Routine maintenance,” the man said.

“With C4?” Spencer asked.

The man stood, cracking his knuckles while the other rushed to finish attaching the explosives to the beam. Spencer came closer, close enough to draw a punch—and the man obliged, swinging wildly—Spencer caught his fist and countered with his own, and the man dropped. The other shot to his feet, but Spencer danced back a step, his hands raised.

“Who sent you here?”

The man threw a punch, but Spencer dodged and stepped around him. “Was it Lancaster?”

“Shut up,” the man growled. He swung again, missed again, and stumbled when Spencer drew back.

“How many of these did you plant?” Spencer asked. The man tried to hit him again, and Spencer pushed him away. “Come on, man, think about it—when I knock you out like I did your friend, you’ll be inside when the building blows.” He waited a moment, giving his words a chance to sink in, and pressed, “Are there any other charges?”

“You won’t find ‘em,” grunted the man, leaping forward with a sloppy jab.

Spencer hit him in the jaw, letting him land at his feet and jumping over him to crouch beside the beam. An empty duffel bag confirmed Spencer’s fears—there would be more explosives in the building, probably set at different levels to make sure the whole thing came down. It was the LanCast site all over again, only this time, Lancaster would make sure all of them were inside. Then he’d pin the attack on Ford, collect the insurance money, and move on to his next high rise.

The C4 on the beam was set with a cellphone detonator, which he disconnected before stuffing the charges back into the bag, but that only solved one problem. He didn’t know where the other charges were, and he didn’t know when they were supposed to go off. Searching the entire building would take too long—he had to find Parker and get her out, get everyone out, before Lancaster could give the order to bring the building down.

First things first.

He turned to face the server room.

The man inside was tall, and though his face seemed faintly familiar, Spencer was disappointed not to feel an instant rush of recognition. Hardison was watching him, one hand raised to cover his mouth, and when Spencer tossed the hair out of his face, he let out a deafening whoop and slammed his hand against the glass.

“I knew it!” he yelled, punctuating his words with another slap. “I knew it! I knew you weren’t dead—no weak ass explosion gonna take you down—I told them! Whoo! Man, you had me worried, you had me—nah, man, I ain’t gon’ cry again. Open the door, man. C’mon, open it up.”

He’d repeated himself another dozen times before Spencer got to the door to punch in the code, and he practically fell through it when it opened. This time, at least, Spencer expected the hug—everything in Hardison’s stance warned it was coming—but he wasn’t ready for the intensity of it. Deceptively strong arms wrapped around his shoulders, crushing their chests together as Hardison launched himself through the doorway.

“Where the hell were you, man?” he said, his voice breaking. “Why didn’t you call?”

Eliot locked his arms over Hardison’s back, holding him so tight that he couldn’t take a full breath, and feeling like there was still too much space between them. Hardison was shaking, clutching at his shoulders like he was afraid to let go—which was fine, because Eliot didn’t want to let go, not until he could make him understand how much he’d missed him. God, he’d missed him—all of them.

He wasn’t himself without them.

“What happened?” Hardison asked, without letting go, without even loosening his grip. His fingers dug into the scrapes and cuts on Eliot’s back, but he didn’t care—he pressed his forehead against Hardison’s shoulder and shook it, fighting for control over himself.

“I forgot,” he managed, his voice muffled. “All of—all of you, I forgot you, and—”

Hardison pulled back, and Spencer turned his face, pretending to look at the stairwell, checking for more guards—and Hardison shifted to put himself in his line of sight. “You hurt?”

Spencer looked the other way. “I went into the LanCast building, but when it blew, I was thrown clear. Mostly. I hit my head.”

Hardison ducked his head, forcing Spencer’s eyes back to his. “What, you—you lost your memory?”

Spencer nodded.

“And you found us anyway?”

He nodded again.

“Dammit, Eliot,” Hardison said. He pulled Eliot into another hug, even fiercer than the last, and burst into tears.

They stood like that for a long minute—Hardison crying and Eliot trying not to—before a crackle from one of the walkie-talkies made Eliot pull away. “Basement level, this is ground level,” said the voice on the radio. “Come in, basement level.”

Hardison let go, and Eliot tried not to miss the contact. He pulled the walkie-talkie from his belt and cleared his throat. “Go ahead, J.B. Did you find them?”

“I got ‘em right here,” J.B. answered. “They came out the side door. Did you find the hacker?”

“He’s here,” Eliot said.

“And the thief?”

Eliot looked at Hardison, who shook his head. “We split up when we got inside. I haven’t seen her.”

“Not yet,” Eliot said into the walkie-talkie. “But we’ve got a bigger problem. I just stopped a pair of Lancaster’s guys from planting C4 in the basement. They may have put some on the other levels, too.”

J.B. swore, and Hardison held out a hand for the walkie-talkie. “Hey man—uh, Hardison here, or whatever—can you put Nate on? Over?”

There was a pause, and then Nate’s voice came over the radio. “Go ahead, Hardison.”

“I found some stuff on the server,” Hardison said, his eyes finding Eliot’s. “Lancaster definitely means to blow this place up, along with a bunch of his other properties. I found some more threatening letters drafted up in his files, and guess who they’re from.”

“Okay, so he wants us to take the fall,” Nate said. “We’d already figured that much out.”

Hardison nodded. “Right, but what we didn’t know is that he’s been talking to some pretty hinky people. And he’s given them a new target.”

“June?” Nate guessed.

“Seems he’s done waiting for her to sell.”

Eliot took the walkie-talkie. “J.B., get back to Sunny’s. Tell her to find some place to lay low until we can get this taken care of.”

“She won’t do it,” J.B. answered. “But I’ll call to give Miguel a head’s up.”

Eliot hesitated, but there was no time to argue. “All right, fine. Then we just need to make sure we get everyone out of the building. Hardison, pull the fire alarm when you go out, and let the firefighters know there are guys down here and in the office on the fourth floor. J.B., I’m sending Hardison out to you now.”

“Roger that.”

Eliot pressed the walkie-talkie into Hardison’s hand and pulled another from his belt, switching the frequency before handing it over as well. “Take these—give one to Nate. I’ll get Parker.”

“Hang on—” Hardison grabbed his arm, holding him still when he tried to move toward the door. “She could be anywhere. We have no idea—”

“She’s going after Lancaster,” Eliot said.

Hardison frowned. “How do you know?”

“Because that’s what I did.”

“Eliot, wait.” Hardison kept his hold, his eyes still red and wide with worry. “You’re—you’re hurt, right? And if you don’t remember… It’s too dangerous. Let me go after Parker.”

“No.” Eliot’s voice was low, distracted as he tallied up the time he’d already lost. “It’s not just Parker—we have to get everyone out. Okay? I need someone I can trust to make sure the building evacuates. Lancaster’s guards will find him any minute now, and you—you have to be outside when that happens.”

“I can help, man, I can—”

“You have to be outside,” Eliot repeated desperately. “I have to know you’re outside. Please.”

Hardison hesitated, setting his jaw as he searched Eliot’s eyes, as the time ticked away.

“I won’t lose her again,” Eliot whispered.

Hardison swallowed. “All right,” he said, gripping Eliot’s hand and then releasing it. “I’ll head outside. You go find Parker.”

Eliot went.

Chapter Text

If this had been a normal job, Parker would have been insulted by how easy it was to evade security. After all, they were clearly looking for her—they mentioned finding “the thief” several times, loudly, over their radios while clomping down the hall in their clunky bad guy shoes. She could have avoided them blindfolded, if she’d had the time to play.

But this wasn’t a normal job, and she wasn’t in the mood for playing.

Overall, the guards had been more of a help than a hinderance. Their patrol patterns had showed her where the safe was, so she’d known exactly what to avoid, and they’d confirmed that Lancaster was in his top-floor office.

And they’d given her a gun.

Well, not given, exactly, but as good as. It wasn’t her fault that the guard on the top floor didn’t have the stamina to stay conscious after being tased. And if they didn’t want people to take their guns after knocking them out, then they should have more than one guard patrolling together.

Lancaster had practically invited her in.

She stole down the hallway on silent feet, the guard’s Glock in one hand. According to the men she’d overheard, the next security sweep of this floor wouldn’t be for another six minutes. Plenty of time to find and take care of Lancaster.

Follow the plan, said the voice in her head. We don’t hurt people.

“Maybe you don’t,” Parker said. “Didn’t. Whatever. But you’re not here, so I’m going to make sure Lancaster never hurts anyone else, ever again.”

Nate will keep that from happening.

“Obviously not.”

She was at the door now, and she reached out with her left hand to open it while the voice went on not being helpful. You should call him, he said. You should tell him what’s happening. Go back and find the safe. Stick with the plan.

She waved a dismissive hand and focused on the office. Lancaster had his back to the door, sitting in his chair against one wall, but he spun when he heard her enter. “Finally,” he snapped. “You’re late. Hurry up and get this—”

He frowned when he saw Parker, and scooted his chair back when he saw her gun. “How did you get in here?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “The door.”

“Listen,” he said. “This has all been just a big misunderstanding. You’re a thief, right? You want money? I can give you money.”

“I can take money,” Parker said.

“I can get you more.”

Parker stepped into the room, leaving the door open. She didn’t want it to slow her down later.

Don’t do this.

She ignored the voice and addressed Lancaster instead. “You tried to kill me. I could get over that—it was probably the smart thing to do, if you didn’t want to be robbed. But what you did to Eliot...” She cocked the gun. “That, I can’t forgive.”

“It was a mistake,” Lancaster said. He pressed back into his chair, his eyes wide. “I didn’t mean for—”

She lifted the gun. “I don’t care what you meant. Right now, I just want you to beg.”

“Beg?” he squeaked.

Parker added her left hand to the gun, and Lancaster scrambled back until his chair hit the wall. “Okay,” he said. “Okay—Please. Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything—pay anything. Please, anything. Anything you want.”

Don’t.

“That wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be,” Parker admitted. “Maybe you weren’t sincere enough. Maybe you should cry.”

“Please,” Lancaster whispered.

Parker.

“No,” she said. “I think he should cry. I think that would help.”

“Parker.”

“Stop!” she shouted. Across the room, Lancaster flinched, but even that didn’t make her feel better. “Stop telling me not to do this. He deserves it.”

“You don’t.”

“Yeah, well, neither did you,” Parker said. “It still happened.”

Lancaster’s eyes were fixed over her shoulder. The gun trembled in her hands. 

“Parker. Look at me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Because yes, okay, she knew the voice wasn’t inside her head, but if she was wrong—if she looked and he wasn’t there, it would mean she was crazy, for real, and it would mean he was gone gone, and she couldn’t handle that. She couldn’t. So she would just stand here and wait, and eventually the voice would go back into her brain where it belonged, and she could get on with killing Lancaster and everything would be fine. It would be fine.

A hand touched hers. Her eyes flew open against her will, and it was Eliot’s hand, and it was Eliot’s face moving in front of her, and Eliot’s voice telling her to give him the gun. She let it go, and he took it and disarmed it and tossed the magazine away while her heart made sick, limping stutters in her chest. She reached out to touch his shoulder, because maybe his hands had been imaginary, but his shoulder would have to be real. It made no sense. She didn’t question it.

Her fingers brushed his upper arm—his very solid, very real arm—and she took a breath.

“Okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

Eliot turned to Lancaster. “Where are the other bombs?”

“The other—” Parker stared at Eliot, then at Lancaster, wondering if she could get to the discarded magazine before Eliot stopped her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lancaster said.

“Really?” Eliot folded his arms, shifting his stance so his shoulder bumped against Parker’s. “Because if they go off while you’re still inside the building, that could go poorly for you.”

“I wouldn’t—”

The blare of a fire alarm cut him off, and Eliot raised his eyebrows. “That’s Hardison. Nate and Sophie are already outside, along with the evidence that you planned to destroy your own property again. The rest of the building’s being evacuated now. It’s over. Tell me where the other bombs are, and we’ll bring you out with us.”

“Do we have to?” Parker hissed.

Eliot didn’t look at her, but the ghost of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

Lancaster glanced between her and Eliot and licked his lips, his chest heaving. “Okay,” he said at last. “Let me go and I’ll tell you where they are.”

“Tell us where they are and we’ll let you go,” Eliot countered.

“Okay,” Lancaster said. “Okay. Untie me. I’ll show you.”

Eliot frowned, drawing out the decision, making Lancaster sweat—Parker would have made him wait longer, but apparently Eliot was more worried about the bombs. He nodded once and moved across the room, kneeling beside the chair to remove the phone cord from Lancaster’s ankles.

“All right,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Lancaster spun on the chair. “But you have to untie my hands!”

“You can walk without your hands,” Eliot said.

“But I—”

Eliot grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him to his feet. “Go.”

Lancaster stumbled, turning, and Parker watched the way his hands scrambled for something to hold onto. They were bound behind his back with a belt—his belt, by the looks of it—but he’d worked part of it loose. He twisted as Eliot let him go, bending his arms at an awkward angle, leaning forward at the waist—

“Eliot—” 

Parker saw it an instant after he did. The gun up Lancaster’s sleeve went off with a sharp pop, but Eliot was already moving forward, putting himself between it and Parker. He grunted, his body jerking as the bullet hit, and Parker threw herself forward to catch him as he fell to one knee.

She screamed. Lancaster fled, and she let him go, running her hand down Eliot’s chest, searching for the wound while trying to hold him up. This wasn’t happening. Eliot hadn’t come back from the dead just to be shot now—he couldn’t—he couldn’t—

“Parker,” Eliot said, loudly, like it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken. He took her hand, holding it still over his heart where she could feel it beating. “I’m okay. It hit my leg.”

He was still upright, leaning against her with one hand over hers and the other pressed against his thigh. “See?” he said, easing his fingers back to expose the tiny hole above his knee. “Small caliber,” he said, his teeth gritting over the words. “In and out—nothing serious. What the hell kind of fake cowboy dork carries an actual freaking derringer in his sleeve?”

“You’re not—” Parker panted. “You’re not—?”

“I’m fine,” he said firmly. “Something that small is single-shot, low accuracy, low damage. Okay? Come on, we gotta…” He started to stand, biting down on a curse, and Parker eased under his arm to help him to his feet. With a groan, he reached for his belt and unclipped a walkie-talkie. “Nate?” he said. “J.B.? You there?”

“We’re here,” Nate answered. “Speak up—can’t hear you over the alarm.”

Eliot cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Is Hardison out?”

“Yeah, he’s right here.”

“I’ve got Parker,” Eliot said. “Or… she’s got me. Lancaster’s on his way downstairs.”

A new voice came over the radio—J.B., whoever that was. “What happened?”

“He had a derringer,” Eliot growled. “Got me in the leg. I’ll be slow getting out. The bombs in the basement had cellphone detonators; Lancaster will call to set them off as soon as he gets out of the building.”

“We’ll cover the exits,” Nate said. “You and Parker get out of there.”

“Roger.”

Eliot handed her the walkie-talkie and pushed her gently toward the door. “Go. I’ll catch up.”

Parker moved back against his side. “I’m not leaving without you.”

“I’m right behind you,” Eliot said. “But I’ll slow you down. You have to—”

Parker stopped, standing still when he tried to nudge her ahead again. “Either we both go, or we both stay.”

Eliot looked at her, his eyes serious and tired beneath the bruises on his face, and her heart broke all over again at the distress in them. It didn’t make any sense. He was here now, he was safe, and they were getting out together. Why did he want her to leave?

“Please,” he said. Begged. “Please, go. If Lancaster detonates the bombs…”

“I’m not leaving you,” Parker said.

His expression shattered. “I left you.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, her brows furrowing. “You didn’t—”

“I left you,” he repeated, his voice harsh and raw. “Or I—I left the place I thought you were. I would have left you behind.”

“You mean the LanCast building?” Parker asked. Eliot closed his eyes, and she took advantage of his distraction and eased them forward a step.

He went with her, breathing heavily through his nose. “I thought you were inside,” he said. “And after the explosion, I ran off without you. Okay? I abandoned you, and you should—you should do the same to me. I’m slowing you down.”

“I wasn’t inside,” Parker said.

“But I thought—”

“I wasn’t inside.” Parker clipped the walkie-talkie to her waistband with one hand and glared at him from under her bangs. “I don’t care what you thought. I wasn’t inside. It would have been stupid to go back in, and you probably would have died for real if you had, so I’m glad you left.”

“Parker—”

“No,” she snapped. “You’re saying I should just leave you here because you’re feeling guilty about something that didn’t happen? That’s stupid.”

“I’m not—” he sputtered. “I’m saying you can’t trust me. I should have—”

“Stop it,” Parker said. They’d reached the elevator, but when she pressed the button, nothing happened. Eliot opened his mouth, and she turned them both toward the staircase to cut him off. “He must have disabled the elevator. Come on, we’ll take the stairs.”

“Parker, please—”

She kicked open the stairwell door. Eliot let out a pained grunt as he half-stepped, half-fell forward, but she was having a hard time feeling sorry for him. How could he think she would leave him behind? Especially now? She shifted to take more of his weight and spoke without looking at him. “I thought you were dead. Just—gone forever, no warning, no goodbye. And then you come back, and… Do you know what that feels like?”

“Yes,” he whispered. 

“Then why are you trying to get rid of me?”

She tried to say it casually, but it came out just as pathetic and broken as she feared it would—because this was Eliot, and he was supposed to understand her, and—

And she was supposed to understand him, too. She turned her head, listening to his sharp, quiet breaths under the sound of the echoing alarm, taking in his pale face and the whites of his knuckles as he clenched the railing. This wasn’t Eliot in pain.

It was Eliot afraid.

“Why are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked again. 

“I don’t want to get rid of you.” He said it softly, breathlessly, like he was trying to hold the words in even as he let them out. “But right now, I can’t—I can’t protect you, and if anything happens—” He inhaled when she moved down a step, his fingers tightening on her sleeve. “You have to get out,” he finished in a weak voice. “You have to. They need you, and I—I—”

Parker gripped his arm. Sophie had told her once that Eliot was so good at what he did because he knew how to stay in control when everything around him fell apart. It was the thing that kept them safe. It gave him the clarity to do what needed to be done—the hard things, he’d told her once, that the others couldn’t do. Those were the kinds of decisions they made.

The kind of decision he was asking her to make.

“Eliot,” she said. She waited until he looked at her, his jaw clenched in preparation for her refusal, his eyes wild. She stopped and shifted under his arm so she could face him. “If it gets to the point that you need me to leave, I’ll go. But only if you promise that you’ll make it out after me.”

“Parker—”

“That’s the deal,” she said. “We’re all going home. Okay?”

He wanted to argue. She could tell he wanted to, but he’d never been able to deny her a sincere request, and she knew he wouldn’t now. His hold on her shoulder relaxed into something less desperate, and after a long moment, he nodded.

She eased him down another step. His breathing was getting more and more ragged, so she changed the subject to distract him. “Do you know Lancaster is after actual buried treasure?”

He snorted. “He told me.”

“Hardison found a bunch of audition tapes he made a few years ago,” Parker said. “When he was trying to get into different Westerns. His accent was even worse than it is now.”

Eliot gave a short laugh, and the sound made Parker beam in response.

Everything would be fine now. The certainty sank through her like melted gold after a successful heist-turned-laundering operation—not that she did those anymore—and she let the warmth soothe away the last of her hurt. Lancaster, hidden treasure, bombs... none of it mattered.

Everything was going to be fine.

Eliot’s knee gave out on the last step, but Parker caught him and held him up while he straightened himself on the railing. “When this is over,” she said, readjusting her grip on his shirt. “We’ll watch all of Lancaster’s audition tapes. Hardison will put them up on the screens and you can make your fancy popcorn on the stove, and we’ll mute it so Sophie can do the voices.”

Eliot huffed out a laugh. “They were that bad, huh?”

“Sophie’s a better actor than he is.”

She opened the door to the lobby, measuring the distance between them and the door. They were so close, and Lancaster was nowhere in sight—not in the lobby, and not outside. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave her a clear view of the sidewalk and street, and the only person she could see was a tallish man in a hoodie, with a walkie-talkie clenched in one hand. Eliot’s friend, probably, watching the front exit, which meant Lancaster had to be inside yet.

Eliot hesitated, his body going still as the door closed behind them. “What?” she asked, her attention on the window. She couldn’t see any of the team, so they must be at the other exits around the building. They were so close now, and she wanted to be outside with them, celebrating with them, welcoming Eliot back…

“I don’t know,” he muttered, his eyes searching the room. “Just… something feels off.”

Parker glanced at the desks and cubicles lining the walls. She knew better than to ignore Eliot’s instincts, but they had to keep going. They didn’t have time to backtrack and find a different exit. If they could just get across the floor, get outside, they’d be safe.

She patted his arm. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

She took a step, and he went with her, gaining momentum as they went. They were a quarter of the way across… halfway… just a little bit more…

A glint of light flashed in her eyes, but she dismissed it as a reflection off a car outside. Then there was a crack, and she was on the ground with Eliot’s arms around her before she registered what had happened.

“Are you hit?” he gasped.

Hit. Bullet. Someone was shooting at them.

“Are you hit?” Eliot repeated, and she could hear the barely-contained panic shredding his words.

She shook her head. Then, because she was lying on her back with Eliot on top of her, and because he was looking back and forth between her and wherever the shot had come from, she said, “No, I’m okay.”

“Behind the desk,” he said. “Go!”

He rose, stumbling, and she ran in a crouch a step ahead of him. They dove behind the shelter of a thick wooden desk as the next shot shattered a lamp over Eliot’s shoulder.

“Dammit,” he grunted, dropping to the floor with his back against the desk, breathing hard. “We lost the radio.”

Parker felt for her waistband—it must have come off when Eliot tackled her. “What now?” she asked.

Eliot made an effort to control his breathing, but there was a layer of sweat on his face, and his skin was pale. “Lancaster,” he called, lifting his voice so it echoed through the lobby. “The police are on their way by now. It’s over.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Lancaster answered. Parker peeked around the side of the desk to find him, but Eliot pulled her back.

“What do you think they’ll do when they find you shooting at people inside your own building?” he yelled.

“I’m going to jail anyway,” Lancaster said. “My life is over. So I figure I’ve got two choices—waste away in a cell, or go out in a blaze of glory. Butch Cassidy style, right? I couldn’t have planned a better ending.”

Another shot hit the desk, sending file paper confetti raining down around them. 

“What do we do?” Parker said. “Wait for the police? If the bombs—”

Eliot looked at her, and she broke off when she read his plan in his eyes.

She almost shook her head. It would be so easy to say no, to pretend not to understand, to insist he find a different way. But it would only be easier for her, and that wasn’t why she’d come.

She took a breath, waiting until she was sure she could speak in an even voice. “You promise?”

His eyes were clear, laying out more than the plan, more than the pain he had stopped trying to hide—and she knew he was reading the same things on her face: all the things they didn’t say, that they didn’t need to say, all right there in the open for anyone to see.

But it was only them, and it would always be them.

Lancaster couldn’t take that away.

Parker reached for the chain on the back of her neck. Eliot’s eyes followed the charm as she lifted it, and he blinked in surprise when she held it out to him. “They found this on one of the bodies,” she explained. “I took it.”

A smile pulled at his eyes. “Keep it. I’ll get it back when this is over.”

She didn’t tell him to be careful. She didn’t ask him to hurry, or to reconsider, or any of the other things she thought she probably should say. She just nodded and tucked his necklace back under her collar, watching his face, memorizing the warmth of his body next to hers.

It would be okay. He’d promised.

Eliot shifted to get his feet beneath him, putting his weight on his left leg. “Single shot,” he said, all business again. “It’ll take him five to seven seconds to reload. You’ll have to be quick.”

She grinned. “I can do it in three.”

An answering smile touched his lips, and he angled himself toward the edge of the desk. “You shoulda spent more time at the range,” he said loudly. “And maybe think about using something with a longer barrel if you want to dry-gulch somebody.”

“Hit you once, didn’t I?” Lancaster answered.

“Yeah,” Eliot laughed. “In the leg. You were standing point blank and couldn’t land a shot center mass. Butch Cassidy would be so proud.”

“With my hands tied behind my back,” Lancaster said, an edge in his voice.

“Oh, that explains it,” Eliot said. “They must still be tied.”

He glanced at Parker—one more time, his eyes bright and sharp—before launching himself across the space between them and the next desk. The gun went off.

She ran for the door.

Chapter Text

Eliot hit the ground forearm-first, rolling along the left side of his body to spare himself as much pain as possible. Lancaster’s shot went high—he heard it thud into the wall, well past the desk he’d landed beneath—but his attention was on the sound of Parker’s footsteps as she broke from cover. One, two, three... The door crashed open, and Lancaster’s answering shot came two seconds too late.

Parker was safe. The rest, he’d figure out.

The radio buzzed against the floor in the middle of the lobby, and he heard a muffled, “Ford, I have Parker. Come around to the front. Lancaster’s still inside with Spencer.”

Thank God for J.B. He really didn’t know how he was going to repay him.

“Hear that?” Eliot called. “Now it’s just you and me. We can still walk out of here before the police show up.”

“No one’s walking out,” Lancaster said. “But you’re right about one thing: we don’t have time to play. Stand up. I won’t shoot, I just want to talk to you face to face.”

Eliot snorted. “Somehow, I’m doubting your sincerity.”

“I give you my word.”

That was as good as useless, but if Eliot wanted to keep him talking long enough to chance an escape, he had to play along. “All right,” he said, sucking in a fortifying breath before straightening behind the desk. Pain lanced down his right leg, and he could feel the blood soaking into his jeans—another pair of Sunny’s ruined. He’d never pay her back at this rate.

Lancaster stood across the room, his derringer aimed at Eliot’s chest. “See you worked your hands free,” Eliot said, rolling his shoulders. “What took you so long? We shouldn’t have been able to beat you down the stairs.”

Lancaster grinned. “I had to stop at my safe. Didn’t want this to get caught up in the explosion.”

He lifted a gun belt, and Eliot groaned. “Don’t you think you’re taking this cowboy thing a little too far?”

“This isn’t a cowboy thing,” Lancaster sneered. “This is a Colt Model 1860 Army Percussion Revolver, owned by Jesse James himself when he rode with the Quantrill Raiders. I bought it for $230,000, but I figured once I found the James treasure, it would sell for twice that.”

A flicker of color outside caught Eliot’s eye: police lights. Their sirens joined the wail of the alarm, and Eliot did his best to push the noise to the back of his pounding head. “Hard to dig up a treasure on someone else’s property,” he said.

“Well, with you out of the way, that won’t be much of a problem.”

Eliot eased a step backward, shuffling to keep from putting too much pressure on his right leg. “You don’t know Sunny June very well.”

“I don’t need to,” Lancaster said. “That’s the beauty of money. You never have to get your hands dirty.”

“Until now,” Eliot said.

“Until now.” Lancaster lifted the gun, sighting down his arm and closing one eye. “A fact I’m about to remedy.”

Eliot braced himself to turn and run, but Lancaster didn’t shoot. Instead, he bent his knees, set the gun at his feet, and slid it across the floor toward Eliot.

“Pick it up,” he said.

Eliot stared at him. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“Shooting at the range is one thing,” Lancaster said, sliding the gun belt off his shoulder and fastening it around his waist. “But I’ve always wanted to know how I’d measure up in a real gun fight.”

“Your gun is 150 years old,” Eliot said. “And mine has a range of like seven yards. Not exactly worthy of the O.K. Corral.”

“You scared?” Lancaster needled.

Eliot laughed. “That don’t work on professionals, hoss. I got nothing to prove to you.”

“Then put it this way.” Lancaster spun the cylinder on his revolver, sliding rounds in as he spoke. “I’m shooting either way. You can pick up that gun and defend yourself, or stand there and take a bullet. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Fire sirens joined the cacophony of alarms, but no one was coming inside. Waiting for the bomb squad, probably—he had to keep stalling. Slowly, he lowered himself into a crouch and reached for the derringer, his eyes on Lancaster’s right hand. He’d holstered the gun and stood with his feet planted wide, grinning.

“How do you see this going down?” Eliot asked. 

Lancaster flexed his hands. “You pick up the gun. It’s already loaded, but you’ll need to cock the hammer. Stand with it at your side, and then we draw. Fastest man wins.”

“Speed don’t mean anything if you can’t land a hit,” Eliot said.

“Then I guess we’re about to test your aim.”

Great—Eliot had no idea if he could shoot. Probably, given his other skills, but it would be just his luck that guns weren’t one of the weapons he was apparently proficient with. But even if he could shoot, even if he could manage to hit Lancaster at the edge of the derringer’s range, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Whatever he’d done in the past, whoever he’d been before… he didn’t want to be a killer. Parker had trusted him to follow her out, and if killed Lancaster now…

He wasn’t sure how much of himself would stay behind.

“Count of three?” Eliot asked. He’d picked up the gun, frowning at the feel of the short handle in his palm, but was careful to keep it pointed away from Lancaster. 

“So you can shoot on two?” Lancaster said. “You’re not getting inside my head, Spencer. Just draw.”

“It’s not really drawing if I don’t have a holster,” Eliot muttered. He lifted the gun carefully, keeping it at his hip as he rose on his good leg.

“You can’t talk your way out of this one,” Lancaster said, sneering. “Either way, you’re not getting out of this alive.”

Eliot went still. “Either way?”

Lancaster’s fingers twitched, and his gaze darted toward a clock on the wall over Eliot’s head. “You think you’re the only one who can stall?”

Alarms and sirens screamed. Eliot’s heart pounded, sending stabs of adrenaline through him—but no fear. Time was up, and he was getting out. 

He’d made a promise.

“You assumed I had to call to set off the bombs,” Lancaster said, misinterpreting his silence. “That ain’t the only way to do it. I would’ve taken a long lunch, only to come back and find the evil Mr. Ford had made good on his threats again. But this will work. You’ve got about ten seconds to decide whether you want to go out with a bang or a bullet.”

Eliot fired. He aimed high, hoping to take Lancaster by surprise, make him flinch—hoping to steal an extra second while he turned for the door. Lancaster’s gun clicked behind him—a misfire—the idiot had probably tried using the ammunition in the gun belt. He didn’t look over his shoulder to see if Lancaster was following. He fixed his eyes on the doors—on the golden hair he could see beyond them.

The explosion started above them. Without the charges in the basement, the building shook, but held—windows burst overhead, raining glass down on the sidewalk outside. The firefighters and police flinched at the sound, hurrying to usher spectators out of the way. Eliot’s leg gave out and he stumbled, caught himself on one hand, and ran on. He was ten feet away—seven, five, two.

The next charges blew as his hand hit the door, and the force of the blast threw it open, shattering glass around him. He lost his feet, crashing into the sidewalk as heat exploded against his back, and then something hit his head—

Chapter Text

Sophie didn’t want justice. She didn’t even want revenge.

She wanted to disappear.

But she couldn’t leave—not really, not yet. Not with Hardison in denial and Parker out for blood, and Nate… Nate would wait to implode until the job was over, but when it happened, there would be collateral damage. Someone needed to be there to sweep up the pieces, so she did what she always did when her heart took the shrapnel of a job gone wrong.

She became someone else.

Eliza Clancy walked into her new job at Lancaster’s downtown office without a care in the world. She shrugged her rhinestone-studded bag onto her desk and gushed good mornings to the various clients who streamed through the door, and she did her work with all the diligence of a fresh hire who still hoped to impress her boss. When Stephen Lancaster sauntered through the doors, Eliza turned the full force of her smile on him and earned a wink in return. She let him take the lead in the conversation, encouraging his advances with fluttered lashes and a blushing agreement to join him in his office. Lancaster smirked and strutted away, his heels clacking across the lobby. He played with his cuff links as he pressed the elevator button for his office, and Eliza kept a smile on her face in case he looked back before the doors closed.

Then she went to work.

Hardison had given her a thumb drive, and she plugged it into the computer tower under her desk and followed his directions for installing his program. His accent is atrocious, she texted Nate, unable to keep her hands still while she waited for the download to finish. His entire focus is on vowel mergers, and he completely ignores rhoticity and t-glottalization. Not to mention the fact that he’s combining half a dozen dialects. He wants very badly to be seen as Southern, but I’d guess he’s from New York.

Did you get Hardison’s program running? Nate replied.

She glanced at the download bar. Working on it.

“Excuse me?”

Eliza palmed her phone, flashing a smile at the man standing behind her counter. “Good morning, sir. How can I help you?”

The man gave her a polite nod. “Mornin’, ma’am. I’m just picking up an envelope for delivery.”

Eliza glanced at his jeans-and-hoodie combo, and the plain ball cap he held in his left hand, and raised her eyebrows. “Delivery for which company?”

“No company, ma’am,” he said, smiling. “I just do this on the side. My name’s on that envelope there.”

Eliza set her hand on the manila envelope labeled J.B. “This?”

“That’s the one.”

Something prickled in the back of her mind, and she tilted her head at him. “This is from Mr. Lancaster?”

“Directly from his office,” J.B. answered.

Well, that was deliberate wording if she’d ever heard it. “And he knows it’s from his office?”

A flicker of interest brightened in his eyes. “Y’know, I’ve made pick ups here before, and I’ve never seen you. I would’ve remembered.”

“I’m new,” Eliza said, leaning forward on her elbows.

“Is that so?” J.B. gave her another curious look, his smile widening. “And just when did you start?”

She folded her hands on the desk. “This morning.”

“That’s pretty convenient timing.”

“For what?” she asked innocently.

He shrugged. “Nothing. Never mind me, I just get to talking. But I wonder if you might help me with something else.”

She waited, inviting him to go on with a small smile.

After a moment, he eased forward a step and set his arm on the counter. “What’s Mr. Lancaster’s schedule like for the rest of the day?”

“Are you hoping for an appointment?” Eliza asked.

“Not specifically,” J.B. said. “Just curious. Between the accident at his new office building and his press release regarding that historical find, I’m sure he’s a busy man. I suppose I was just wondering how busy.”

“He’ll be in his office all afternoon,” Eliza said, watching J.B.’s expression carefully.

He smiled. “Thank you, ma’am. You’ve been a big help.”

He tucked the envelope under his left arm and nodded to her as he turned away. She almost went back to her work, but some instinct kept her watching as he passed the security guard standing at the doors, where he dropped the envelope, laughed at himself as the guard bent to pick it up, and deftly slipped the walkie-talkie off the man’s belt.

He glanced back at the lobby, noticed her watching, and winked.

“I think he likes you,” said the woman at the next desk.

Eliza raised her eyebrows. “You think so? Have you seen him before?”

“He’s been here a couple times in the last few weeks,” her neighbor answered. “Sorry, you’re new, right? I didn’t catch your name.”

“Eliza.”

The woman smiled. “I’m Peg. You figuring things out okay?”

“Oh, sure,” Eliza said. “Everyone here is so nice.”

“Of course they are.” Peg gave a short laugh, and Eliza tilted her head. “Well, that all stems from Mr. Lancaster,” Peg went on. “He sets the tone for everyone. I noticed he talked to you quite a bit when he came in.”

Was that jealousy? Eliza waved a hand and glanced at her computer to check the progress of Hardison’s program. “He was only asking about his schedule.”

“He likes to check on us,” Peg said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he invited you up to his office. He does the same for all the new girls.”

Eliza flashed her a smile. “Oh, I don’t think anything of it. I’m sure he’s a great boss, but he’s not my type.”

“I see.” Peg’s expression softened, and she returned the smile. “Well, let me know if you need anything. I’m happy to help.” 

That was... interesting. And not quite in character for Eliza. She was friendly but tough, used to taking care of herself, used to getting her way. She wouldn’t have backed down from Peg’s challenge. But she’d opened her mouth to deliver a backhanded comment about Peg marking her territory, and at the last second, she’d deferred. She’d chosen sugar over vinegar, reassurance over escalation.

And it had worked.

Eliza studied her computer screen without seeing it. That wasn’t her style. She didn’t submit. She found out what her target wanted, and then she withheld just enough to make them want to help her, made them crave her attention and approval. Backing off like this, disarming her opponent with quiet charm—that was more like—

She shook her head, blinking hard at the screen.

“A little tip,” Peg said, leaning back in her chair to look at Eliza. “Mr. Lancaster likes it when we bring in pictures of our families. He wants the office to have a homey feel.”

Eliza swallowed back a rush of emotion and smiled. “Well isn’t that nice.”

“Kids especially,” Peg went on. “Married with kids is always good.”

“Sorry,” Eliza said, huffing a small laugh and holding up her plain-fingered left hand. “No husband, no kids.”

“Well that’s all right, other family works too. You got any siblings?”

No. Eliza was an only child—driven, independent, and confident. She’d come to the city to work her way into a management role; she had big dreams, and she wasn’t afraid to fight for them.

“A brother,” she said, without her brain’s permission. “I had a brother.”

Sympathy chased the lingering distrust from Peg’s expression. “Oh, hon, I’m sorry. You were close?”

“He—We—” she stammered. “We were…” What were they? How could she possibly describe what he was to her? But Peg was watching, and she had to say something, so she took a breath and stole the words he’d once said about her. “He was a brother and a best friend, all rolled into one.”

“You don’t have to put up a picture if it’s too hard,” Peg said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

A message on the screen blinked, and Eliza forced a smile to her face. “Oh, that’s all right. But I—I really should get back to this. I got some appointments to enter.”

“Of course,” Peg said gently. “You let me know if you need anything.”

Nate arrived shortly after that, and she passed him the credit card she’d taken from one of Lancaster’s sales reps so he could update his outfit to match Lancaster’s expectations. She waited for him to return, but before he could, Janish, the hulking head of security, showed up with a request for Eliza to meet Lancaster in one of his private offices.

“Of course,” she said, balancing her tone between shy and eager. “I’ll just freshen up and—”

“No need,” Janish said. “Follow me, please.”

She made one more attempt, putting on her prettiest smile. “There’s no need to trouble yourself. I know where his office is.”

“Mr. Lancaster has a meeting in his penthouse office,” Janish said blandly. “He will meet you on the fourth floor. Come with me, please.”

And for the first time in years, she felt afraid. It surprised her—snuck up on her, like a... well, like a thief. She’d been on her own for so long, had relied on herself for so long, that it shouldn’t have been such a shock to return to a system where she had no backup. But since joining the team, she’d never really been alone on a job. They were always there on the comms, and barring that, she’d always been able to rely on a last-minute rescue, no matter how dire the situation got.

Without him watching, without her hero ready to burst in at the last minute to save the day… she had never felt more alone.

She bent to retrieve her purse from under her desk, pausing just long enough to unplug the thumb drive and drop it inside. “Lead the way, Mr. Janish,” she said, smiling to cover the fear and the loss and all the other things Eliza wasn’t supposed to be feeling.

He ushered her to the office at the end of the fourth floor hallway, where she waited quietly while he guarded the door. She pondered what Eliza would do if the con was up, and how she’d manage if she had to drop the front she’d built up. She pretended not to recognize Nate when he came to request her presence on Lancaster’s behalf.

And then Eliot was there, like he always was, like he’d never left, and the con and the character and every other crisis melted away when she threw her arms around him and felt his hand on her back, protecting her still. 

“Ford, I have Parker. Come around to the front. Lancaster’s still inside with Spencer.”

J.B.’s voice came over Nate’s radio, and Sophie abandoned the side door they’d been watching and ran as quickly as her heels would let her toward the front of the building. “What happened?” she panted. “Why didn't he follow Parker out?”

Nate glanced at her as they ran, but he didn’t answer. All the relief and joy that had been twisting in her stomach fell back into a tangle of anxiety, and she paused to take off her shoes so she could go faster.

They weren’t going to lose him again. They couldn’t. If he was still inside, they would go get him.

They were bringing him home.

Hardison was waiting with Parker and J.B., who was deep in discussion with a police officer—the chief, judging by the golden stars embroidered on his sleeve. “Didn’t you hear what she said?” J.B. was saying, gesturing wildly at Parker. “We’ve still got a man inside, and Lancaster has a gun. We can’t just sit out here and do nothing.”

“I can’t send any of my men inside until the bomb squad arrives,” the chief answered.

“Come on, Vince,” J.B. said. “They’re just in the lobby. If you won’t go in, then at least let me.”

The chief shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. You’re a civilian now, Rimes. You’re not trained for this.”

“I’m trained for more than—”

“Let me do my job,” the chief interrupted. “I’m letting you stay on this side of the blockade for old time’s sake. Don’t make me regret it.”

He turned away, shouting orders for his men to keep the gathering crowd away from the building, and J.B. swore under his breath. Sophie glanced at the building, blinking in the glare of the mirrored windows. She couldn’t see inside, but if Eliot was just in the lobby…

“You said Lancaster has a gun?” Nate asked.

Parker nodded. “Just a little one. Eliot told me to get out, but he promised he’d follow.”

“Normally I wouldn’t question that,” Hardison said, standing close to Parker. “But he’s not exactly operating at 100% right now. Without his memories—”

Parker spun to face him. “Without his what?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Sophie asked. 

“Tell me what?”

“He hit his head,” J.B. said. “Retrograde amnesia. He didn’t even know his name when I found him.”

“But...” Parker shook her head, frowning at Hardison, then Sophie, then Nate. “He knew me. He called me Parker.”

“He told me himself that he didn’t remember us,” Hardison said.

“He knew me,” Parker insisted. “He said he thought I was inside the LanCast building.”

“Wait.” J.B. put out a hand, gaping at her. “That was you?”

Nate’s eyes were back on the building, but he turned his head toward J.B. to explain. “Lancaster set a trap. He told Eliot that Parker was inside so he would go in after her.”

“Then...” A grin split J.B.’s face, so bright and unexpected that it warmed some of the chill in Sophie’s chest. “You’re alive!” he laughed. “And he knows it? He knows it was you?”

Parker opened her mouth, confused, and J.B. waved a hand to cut off her question. “He remembered someone important was inside,” he said. “Or—was supposed to be inside. He went back to look for you, but when I told him the news reported three bodies had been recovered, he—well, we both thought you were dead. It was—he was—” He shook his head and resettled his cap on his head. “I’ve seen soldiers lose their friends in combat, people they were supposed to protect… He may not have remembered your name, but he remembered you.”

“All of us,” Nate said quietly. “He told me he’d dreamed about us. A part of him remembered.”

“Of course he did,” Sophie said. “We’re his family.”

J.B. gave her a long look. “It’s more than that. I don’t know how to explain it. Traumatic brain injuries don’t particularly care how much you love someone.”

Sophie shook her head, hooking the heels of her shoes into her bag and twisting her hair up out of her face. She wanted to be ready when the building was cleared for entry. “It isn’t just love,” she said, searching again for a way to explain. She hadn’t been able to find the words with Peg, but she hadn’t been Sophie then. This wasn’t something anybody else could understand. Her gaze found Hardison’s, and he pressed his lips together and nodded. “He’s a part of us,” she said at last. “It doesn’t matter what he does or doesn’t remember. It’s who he is. Who we are. He can’t help it.”

“Parker,” Nate said, his voice firm and decisive again. “Hardison. If Eliot’s hurt, we’ll need paramedics.”

“On it.”

Police and firefighters shouted orders over their sirens, but J.B.’s status apparently applied to them as well, because nobody made them back away. After a few minutes, Hardison and Parker returned in paramedic uniforms, which made J.B. blink and shake his head. “How did you—?”

“I got the keys to an ambulance,” Parker interrupted. “We just need to—”

A single gunshot sounded from inside. They froze, and Sophie held her breath, waiting for the inevitable.

There was a low, metallic boom, and the windows in the upper floors shattered. People on the street behind them screamed, their voices joining the noise Sophie could barely hear over the pounding of her heart. Parker broke for the door, but J.B. caught her and held her back, and she didn’t even have time to fight him before a second explosion rocked the ground. Firefighters yelled at them to stay away, to get everyone back, to clear the area—and then a blast of fire and broken glass blew through the doors, and Sophie raised a hand to shield her face as the concussion knocked a wall of heat against them.

When she looked again, Eliot was sprawled face-down on the ground in front of the ruined doors, unmoving.

They were all running, then. Parker reached him first, falling at his side and brushing the glass from his back, shaking his shoulders. He didn’t react.

J.B. crouched beside her and turned him over. “Take his legs. I’ll get his—”

Hardison pushed his hands away. He scooped one arm under Eliot’s knees and wrapped the other around his back, pulling him up against his chest as he stood. Sophie caught Eliot’s limp arm and tucked it across his stomach before Hardison turned away. Her face was wet again, and flames roared at her back. Nate dragged her away as firefighters swarmed the building.

Parker ran ahead to open the back door of their stolen ambulance, and J.B. jumped inside to help lift Eliot’s body—Eliot, a live, living Eliot, not his body—onto a waiting stretcher.

Sophie put her hand on Hardison’s empty arm. “It’s okay,” she said, because Hardison was shaking and she had to say something, even if she wasn’t sure she believed it. “He’s going to be okay.”

He dragged his sleeve over his face and took her hand without looking up from Eliot’s face.

“He’s breathing,” J.B. reported, his voice distracted. “Parker, hand me the BP cuff there—yeah, thanks. Help me get his sleeve rolled up.”

They worked silently for a few minutes, shuffling back and forth between the narrow aisle as they checked Eliot’s vitals. J.B. spent the majority of that time by Eliot’s head, shining a light into his eyes and feeling for injuries hidden beneath his hair.

“Ford,” J.B. said finally, leaning back and wiping his arm across his forehead. “I don’t know much about you folk, or about Spencer, but I assume you’d like to avoid a hospital stay?”

“That would be ideal,” Nate said. Sophie glanced at him; his voice was raspy, like he’d been inhaling the smoke pouring out of the building, and he wouldn’t look at her. She reached out with her free hand to take his.

“I can treat his leg at Sunny’s,” J.B. said. “And I don’t see any other injuries I couldn’t handle. But he needs a CT scan before I can be sure we can risk it.”

“How are we going to get a CT scan outside of a hospital?” Sophie asked.

Hardison squeezed her hand, inhaled, and let it go. “Leave that to me. Text me the address, I’ll meet you there. Parker?”

Parker vaulted out of the ambulance and threw a glance over her shoulder at them. “It’ll be okay,” she said, smiling. “He promised.”

Then she and Hardison ran around the side of the ambulance and were gone.

Chapter Text

Nana had taught Hardison most of what he considered good about himself. Qualities he was intentional about nurturing, skills he’d built up over the years of watching how she treated others. How to talk to people, how to listen, how to wait.

How to pray.

“You don’t get to just waltz in and start demanding,” she’d told him once, after he’d been asked to say a blessing at the dinner table and had prayed for a new bike. “Prayer ain’t a vending machine. It’s for getting things done, d’you understand? You bless a meal with it, or you ask for safe travel or healing. You don’t pray for what you want; you pray for what you need.”

Hardison prayed for Eliot.

First it was for safety—that Eliot would meet the rest of them back at the hotel without too many injuries. Then, that he would meet them at all. That his body wouldn’t be one of the ones that had been recovered from the fire. That the medical examiner had made a mistake. That Eliot’s necklace on the burned corpse didn’t mean what they all thought it meant.

After that, the specific words didn’t matter. He couldn’t form the eloquent petitions he’d learned as a child, or the casual requests he’d developed as an adult. His prayers were a constant, bone-deep, anguished chorus, pulsing through him with every broken heartbeat.

Please. Please. Please.

When the door to the server room locked behind him, he half believed Eliot would pop up behind the guards like he always did, the unexpected protector summoned by Hardison’s need. It didn’t happen. The guards positioned themselves outside the door, but otherwise left him alone, so he did the only thing he could think to do—he finished his job. He downloaded copies of Lancaster’s financials, along with communications between him and several shady characters with suspicious connections to the destruction of several other properties, and a particularly condemning email about “taking care of” June Davidge. After that, he did what he could to disable Lancaster’s operations from within the system while his fingers plucked at the black hair tie he’d picked up from the floor of the hotel. It covered his wrist like a wound that hadn’t scarred yet, and the rhythm he tapped over it joined the wordless litany running through the back of his mind.

The door opened again, rocking painful hope through him again, and again he was disappointed. Two men with a duffle bag made their way to one of the support beams outside the server room, which set off all kinds of alarms in Hardison’s head. They said something about a maintenance check to the guards, who waved them away with an infuriating lack of concern. Hardison was running out of time.

He was busy trying to form a strategy for getting through the ever-increasing number of bad guys when the door opened next, and he was pleasantly surprised when first one and then the other two guards went into the stairwell and didn’t come back out. Maybe he could sneak out while the duffle bag twins were busy. Maybe he could salvage this on his own.

The door opened again, and everything else in Hardison’s brain slammed to a halt, because it was him, and the conviction and the hurt and the piercing, shredding joy shocked him out of a reaction, and he stood there while the man who couldn’t be Eliot stalked across the room and made short work of the obviously-not-maintenance-guys. Please, went the stubborn, unrelenting hope, pounding in time with the punches Hardison would have recognized in the dark, underwater, blindfolded, or buried. 

Please. 

Please. 

Please.

He’d finished off the duffle goons and kneeled to remove whatever they’d been attaching to the support beam, and then he stood and flipped his hair out of his face, and that—that was Eliot.

He was there, impossibly, when Hardison needed him most.

And now he needed Hardison, and Hardison wasn’t going to let him down.

“Biggest hospital in the city is the university medical center,” Hardison said, catching Parker’s arm as she tossed the keys into the front seat of the ambulance they’d already stolen. “It’s got a Level I trauma center. That’s our best bet for a portable CT unit.”

Parker jogged with him, her eyes bright and focused. “Do you know how to use one of them?”

“Hopefully J.B. does,” Hardison said.

They were putting a lot of trust in a man none of them knew, but Hardison didn’t see what choice they had. He’d given them a rushed explanation of how he’d met Eliot after the LanCast explosion, how he’d brought him back to the house where he’d been staying, how he and Eliot had put together a plan to go after Lancaster to keep him away from their friend, Sunny. There hadn’t been time to dig into the details, and no time to question just how convenient it was that Eliot had happened upon an ally when he so desperately needed one. 

If J.B. was the cavalry, Hardison would take him.

They’d reached Lucille, and Hardison handed Parker the keys and climbed into the back of the van, pulling off his paramedic uniform so he could swap it with whatever they could find at the hospital. A streak of red on his sleeve caught his eye, and a wave of nausea made him sit down hard, his body flushed and chilled at the same time.

“Hardison?” Parker said from the front.

“Yeah,” he croaked. He cleared his throat and shrugged out of the bloody shirt, blinking away the image of Eliot’s pale face against his arm, his eyes closed, his body heavy and lifeless. 

“You okay?”

No. He wouldn’t be, not until he could get back to Eliot and see for himself that he was going to be all right. Not until he could replace the latest images in his head—the bruised face and haunted eyes when he’d admitted to not remembering, confessed to it, like he was expecting punishment—with the old, healthy, grumpy-with-affection Eliot.

But Parker understood that, so he just opened his laptop and forced out a half-hearted, “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“You knew,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

He looked up and met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Knew what?”

“That he was alive.” She turned her attention back to the street, her lips pressed together. “That he would come back. How did you know?”

“I didn’t know,” Hardison said. “I hoped, but...”

Parker made a surprisingly gentle turn. “Is that what we’re doing now?”

Hardison closed his eyes, conjuring up the image of Eliot smiling over a table set with his cooking, surrounded by the team as they laughed and ate and celebrated a job well done. “My Nana used to tell me that doubting was easy,” he said, rubbing his thumb over Eliot’s hair tie on his wrist. “That faith was a fight, and that a lot of times, it feels like you’re losing. But you get back up enough times, and you start to see that maybe there was a purpose to the fighting. Maybe it made you stronger. Kinder. Maybe it taught you something.”

“What did it teach you?” Parker whispered.

“To hold on,” Hardison said. “To trust the people you love, and to do whatever you can to help them, and to never give up on them.”

Parker looked at him in the mirror and nodded. “Because we made a promise, too.”

“Damn right,” Hardison said. “And we’re not going to let him down.”

“Ten minutes to the hospital,” Parker said.

Hardison took a breath, wiped his eyes, and started typing.

Half an hour later, they wheeled the portable CT scanner up June Davidge’s sidewalk with the help of Miguel, J.B.’s surly friend. The others had arrived ten minutes earlier, and had Eliot on a stretcher in the living room, waiting for a scan before they settled him in the upstairs bedroom he’d apparently been staying in since the LanCast explosion. “Sunny June,” J.B. had said, meeting them at the door with a large woman who reminded Hardison viscerally of Nana. “Meet Spencer’s friends. Hardison, Parker, this is the woman you’ve been helping.”

To his surprise, Parker greeted June with a hug before bounding into the living room. J.B. and Miguel followed, but Hardison hung back, standing in the kitchen with his laptop in one hand and the scanner paperwork in the other. He’d stopped questioning the way the details of this job kept pulling together—the fact that Eliot had somehow found June Davidge after being separated from the rest of them, how he’d come at the case from a different angle, working with them without even knowing it.

The prayers in his head had gone from supplicating to grateful, despairing to relieved, and he didn’t particularly care how it had worked out now that they had found each other again.

“You look like you could use some coffee,” June said from behind him.

Hardison jumped; he’d thought she’d gone with the others. June looked him over like he was a piece of code she wasn’t sure she was reading right, and then nodded toward the living room. “Your other friends are out there—Sophie and Nathan. With Eliot. That’s his real name, right?”

“Eliot Spencer,” Hardison said.

“Ah.” June bustled past him and took a plain white mug out of the cupboard. “Eliot. That suits him… softens him up a bit.”

Hardison smiled. “I see he’s grown on you.”

“Can’t much help that,” June said. “J.B. likes to pick up strays—the ones who got no one else, who need help. That’s how he found me. I can’t say no to anyone he brings home.”

“He’s been helping you with Lancaster?” Hardison asked.

June poured coffee into the mug and held it out to him. “He’s been trying. Wasn’t until Eliot showed up that we made any progress, though. That boy’s got a good head on his shoulders, if he could just keep it out of trouble.”

At that, Hardison laughed. “You have no idea.”

“He does this often, then?” June asked. “Go after men like Lancaster?”

“Yes.” Hardison took a drink of the coffee, even though his preferred vehicle for caffeine was soda. “That’s what we do. We find people like Lancaster, people who are taking advantage of others, and we stop them.”

“Sounds dangerous,” June said.

Hardison set down his laptop to wrap his other hand around the mug, letting the heat seep into his palms. “Eliot’s good at what he does... the best. He doesn’t usually get hurt. But this... this all...”

He took another drink to cover the silence, and June sighed and leaned against the counter. “I imagine it hasn’t been easy on you, but I gotta say, I’m not sorry he ended up here. Wish I coulda taken some of the bumps out of his road, but he and J.B. have been an answer to my prayers. I’ll be sad to see them go.”

“Doesn’t J.B. live here?” Hardison asked.

“For now,” June said. She poured herself some coffee and let her gaze wander toward the hall. “He’s been here a few weeks, but now that this business with Lancaster is wrapped up, I expect he’ll be moving along too.”

Hardison lowered his mug. “You mean he was here for Lancaster?”

“You’ll have to ask him the details,” June said. “I was just happy for the help.”

Hardison opened his mouth to answer, but Miguel’s voice came down the hall. “Sunny! J.B. needs a ice pack.”

“Be right there,” June called, setting down her coffee with a sigh. “I never had sons of my own,” she said over her shoulder as she reached for the freezer door. “I think it’s ‘cause the Lord knew my heart couldn’t handle it. Between Miguel’s street fighting and J.B.’s surveillance and your Eliot now, I haven’t had a moment’s peace in weeks. I keep my first aid kit stocked better than my pantry.”

“I know the feeling,” Hardison said, a small smile pulling at his lips.

Sunny grabbed a tea towel off the oven handle to wrap around the ice pack. “You coming?”

“It’s pretty crowded in there,” Hardison said. “Do you mind if I take a look through your yard? I’ve got a few theories about where Elizabeth Classen may have hidden Frank’s treasure.”

“Suit yourself, sugar,” June said. “But don’t be out too long. I have a feeling Eliot will appreciate some familiar faces when he wakes up.”

Hardison smiled, waiting for her to leave before he swallowed down the rest of his coffee in one bitter gulp, rinsed the cup, and hurried out the back door. He was sure she’d seen through this hesitation, and was thankful she hadn’t brought it up. The truth was, he couldn’t bear the thought of sitting still while J.B. ran his tests. He needed to be moving, helping—anything but staring at Eliot’s bruised face while his imagination fed him worst-case scenarios.

He took out his phone and pulled up the image he’d found on the museum website, which showed a black and white photograph of June’s back yard in 1912. A few bushes were here now that weren’t in the picture, but he was more interested in what was no longer in the yard. The photograph showed a few trees which had been cut down decades before, a water pump, and there—Hardison held up his phone, following the edge of the property until he got to the spot where, a hundred years before, a wooden shed had stood.

“You planning on digging with your bare hands?”

Hardison looked up to find J.B. walking toward him, a shovel in one hand. “Just wanted to see if the photos matched up,” Hardison said. “Did you finish the scans already?”

“They only took a few minutes,” J.B. said. “I wouldn’t say everything looks good, exactly, but it’s not as bad as I was expecting. There’s a decent chance he’ll make a full recovery if you can get him to sit still for more than a few minutes.”

“That’s always the trick,” Hardison muttered.

J.B. laughed and gestured with the shovel. “Right here?”

“Right there.”

Obligingly, he stuck the tip of the shovel into the ground and stepped on it, driving the blade deeper into the dirt. “You’ve known Spencer a long time?” he asked. “Eliot, I mean.”

“A while, yeah,” Hardison said.

“Seems like a good guy to have around in a scrape.”

Hardison put his phone in his pocket. “I could say the same for you. It was pretty lucky you found him when you did.”

“Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” J.B. said. “I’d been watching the LanCast site for weeks, trying to figure out what he was doing with all his properties, why so many of them ended up unfinished or demolished before completion.”

“That’s a pretty specific brand of curiosity,” Hardison said.

J.B. laughed, pulling up a shovel-full of dirt and dumping it out of the way. “In this case, I was hired to be curious.”

“Oh?”

He grinned and stuck out a hand. “J.B. Rimes, P.I.”

“P.I.?” Hardison echoed, shaking his hand with mingled confusion and understanding. “Don’t you need a mustache for that?”

“I prefer Selleck’s Westerns,” J.B. said. “Give me Crossfire Trail over Magnum any day.”

Hardison laughed. “And you were investigating Lancaster?”

“A few of the families Lancaster chased out of town wanted to know what he was up to, so they came to me. When I noticed his men hanging around Sunny’s house, I asked her if I could stick around to keep an eye on the LanCast construction. I’d been running surveillance the night it exploded, and I figured I didn’t want to be there when the police showed up, so I took off and hid in an alley. A few minutes later, Spencer stumbled in, smelling like smoke and looking like hell. Wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

“How’d you know he wasn’t working for Lancaster?” Hardison asked.

J.B. shrugged and shoveled up another load of dirt. “Didn’t. But I figured the best way to find out was to bring him back to Sunny’s. Besides, he was pretty banged up. He needed help.”

“You probably saved his life,” Hardison said.

“I don’t know about that. I figure he’d have managed.”

He pushed the tip of the shovel through the dirt, and Hardison moved a few steps away and pointed out a new spot with this foot. “It won’t be buried deep. Try over here.”

J.B. shuffled over and started a new hole. “I’d say it all worked out in my favor,” he said. “I got more done in 24 hours with Eliot than I had in three weeks on my own.”

The back door opened, and Hardison turned to watch Nate walk toward them. “Eliot’s settled,” he said, partly to Hardison and partly to J.B. “Parker’s on her way to return the CT scanner. June told me you boys are on a treasure hunt.”

“I noticed an old shed in one of the photographs from the museum,” Hardison said. “And if I was trying to hide a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of blood money where no one would find it, I figure I’d bury it somewhere that wasn’t likely to be dug up. Like under a loose floorboard, maybe.”

“That, and she mentioned the shed in one of her letters,” Nate said.

Hardison shrugged. “That, too.”

“But still,” Nate said. “The odds that you’ll find the treasure after all these years are pretty slim. Elizabeth Classen probably dug it up herself. Or if she didn’t, then it’s likely disintegrated by now. It’d be a miracle if anyone ever finds it.”

J.B.’s shovel struck something solid. He grinned at Nate. “What’s the matter, Ford?” he said. “You don’t believe in miracles?”

“I do,” Hardison said, touching Eliot’s hair tie.

Nate looked at him and glanced back at the house.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Maybe I do, too.”

Chapter Text

A soft clicking sound pulled him awake.

He couldn’t place it at first—his thoughts were fragmented, frayed like a threadbare shirt sent through too many washes. Whenever he tried to focus, a gust of pain would tumble through him and scatter whatever he’d managed to gather, and he’d have to start over. The clicking, though. It stayed consistent, a beacon through the fading mist.

Tick tick tick pop, click, tick tick tick.

“You missed the buried treasure,” said the voice in his head. Except it wasn’t in his head; it was at his side, next to the clicking sound. “There used to be a shed in June’s yard, I guess, and Elizabeth Classen wrote about a loose floorboard where she hid her letters from her family. When she moved away, she took her letters with, but left the money. Now it belongs to June.”

He took a breath, dragging himself away from the windswept pain toward the sound of her voice.

“Now that Lancaster isn’t around to bother her about it, it might actually do some good,” she went on. “Nate and Hardison are helping her authenticate the find. You know, with the paperwork and the taxes and whatever other boring things go with making official historical claims. It’s a shame. I would have found a better place for the money. They wouldn’t even let me smell it. Hardison was afraid of mold or something.”

“Parker,” he said.

She stopped talking. 

The silence enveloped him, and panic clawed up his throat. “Parker?”

“I’m here.”

He opened his eyes, blinking in the faint light coming through the window. He was in his room at Sunny’s, lying with a quilt tucked around his chest and Parker sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him. She had her back against the wall and a lock in her hands, just like his dream. When had he dreamed it? It was after he woke up earlier, after he went back to look for her, back when she was—when she was... God, was she…?

“Are you real?” he whispered.

She tilted her head. “You mean like solipsism? Like, the only thing we can know exists for sure is ourselves, which means everyone else is only a representation of ourselves—myself? Er, yourself?”

“Parker,” Eliot gritted out. “Are you here?”

“Oh!” She dropped the lock into her lap and did what he couldn’t do, this time or the last.

She took his hand.

“I’m here,” she said, closing her fingers around his. “And you’re here. I don’t think solipsism is all that popular anymore.”

He lifted his free hand and laid it on his forehead, grinding the heel of his palm into his eyes. It was splinted and wrapped—he must have sprained his wrist in the second explosion—but it didn’t matter. She was alive. He hadn’t dreamed it. She was here, sitting next to him and being weird and he’d forgotten how much he loved that, how much he missed her, how badly he needed her.

“You remember me?” Parker asked.

Eliot spoke without moving his hand from his face. “I think so. I don’t—I don’t know, there’s still… How do you know what you don’t remember?”

“Hmm.” She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles, pulling him farther from the pain to center his attention on her touch. “Do you remember the time we stole a diamond that was actually a potato, but it turned out there wasn’t a diamond after all?”

“…No?”

“What about the time Nate hypnotized Hardison and he played the violin at that concert hall?”

“Um… maybe...”

“Or the time you were a minor league baseball player and you made a commercial for the Japanese energy drink?”

“That never happened.”

Parker laughed, and the sound filled Eliot’s chest, chasing out the empty ache and the tight, lingering fear. She was here. Fatigue weighed on him, filling his head with a thick, fuzzy haze of pain and disorientation, and nausea swirled in his stomach and his leg hurt, but the Parker on his bed was real.

He felt better than he could remember.

He took a grounding breath, trying to compose himself enough to look at her, but a sound at the door broke his concentration.

“Parker?” Hardison said. “Do you have those photocopies from—” He stopped, and Eliot lifted his hand so he could see him standing uninjured in the doorway, a laptop in one hand, his pants dusted with dirt.

“Hardison,” he said.

His voice was still rough, and Hardison’s eyes watered at the sound of it. He dropped the laptop on the dresser and kneeled on the floor beside the bed, wrapping his arms around Eliot before he could fully sit up. He seemed to be making an effort to be gentle, but Eliot pulled him closer, throwing his right arm around Hardison’s shoulder and pressing his fist to the back of his neck. His left hand was still in Parker’s, and he clung to it, pressing all the fear and remorse and relief he couldn’t voice into the contact.

“Hey, man,” Hardison asked unevenly. “You okay?”

Eliot nodded into his shoulder, and Parker pressed his hand, and the last of the fear coating his thoughts splintered apart. There were details he knew needed his attention—Lancaster and June and the other properties he and J.B. had found—but at the moment, he was content to let them exist in the background, a problem for his future self. For now, he wanted nothing else but to know that his people were safe, and he was safe, and that the void in his existence wasn’t going to stay empty forever.

Finally, Hardison eased back, and a wave of dizziness swept over him at the lack of support. When he blinked the spots out of his vision, Hardison’s hand was on his upper arm, and Parker had let him go so he could hold himself up.

“J.B. said you’d probably feel weak when you woke up,” Hardison said. “Hang on, I’ll get you some water. I’ll be right back.”

Parker helped him sit up as Hardison hurried from the room, stuffing a pillow behind his back to keep him upright. “Do you want to see your brain scans?” Parker said excitedly. “I kept a copy.”

“Uh… maybe later.” He closed his eyes, breathing through his nose to control the nausea brought on by the movement. “The others are okay?”

His voice came out gruffer than he meant it to, but Parker didn’t seem to mind. She leaned back against the wall and stretched her legs over his lap, settling over him like a blanket. “Everyone’s fine. Well, except for Lancaster—he was inside the building when it exploded. Janish, too. But the rescue teams did get the guards you knocked out in the basement. I guess the staircase held up, and they were able to pull them out. They’ll all be fine.”

At least that was something. “The bombs were on a timer,” he said. “Lancaster stalled to keep me inside.”

“But you made it out,” Parker said. “You kept your promise.”

She said it like it was a given, like he was someone who could be taken at his word, and her certainty sent a spark of shame smoldering through him. He still had no idea who he had been before. Parker was a thief, Hardison was a hacker, Sophie was a grifter—criminals, all of them, but he knew in his heart that they were good. Even more so after they gathered together under the leadership of a man they respected, a man who had made them a family.

But Eliot? He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t innately good like they were.

Parker was still watching him, her head tilted, and he forced a smile to his face. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I promised.”

Parker opened her mouth, but footsteps in the hall announced Hardison’s return, and she let the conversation end.

Nate, Sophie, and J.B. followed Hardison into the room, and Eliot sat up straighter under their worried looks, trying to look as healthy as possible. Sophie moved to the head of the bed and took the chair from the desk by the window. 

“Parker,” she said, frowning. “He has a bullet wound in his leg. Should you really be lying on him?”

“I know where it is,” Parker said, lifting her foot to prove that her weight was distributed safely across his upper thighs.

Sophie shook her head. “Still, you probably shouldn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Eliot said, too quickly, afraid that Parker would pull away if Sophie kept talking. Her absence would hurt far more than the little bit of pressure she was putting on his injury.

Sophie studied him for a moment, her brow furrowed, and then handed over a bottle of water. “All right, but make sure to tell her if it gets to be too much.”

“How are you feeling?” J.B. asked from across the room. He was standing just inside the doorway like he didn’t want to intrude, but at Eliot’s nod, he took another step toward the bed. “I can’t believe you don’t have serious brain damage, but your scans were encouraging. Your memory should return once you’ve had some real rest. Which means you’ll actually have to rest, and not go running off into any destroyed buildings or starting fist fights, and I’d highly encourage you to avoid getting blown up for a day or two. Got it?”

Eliot gave a weak laugh. “Deal.”

“I have the deeds,” he said. “The ones you got from Lancaster’s office. Sophie was kind enough to help me retrieve them before the building went down.”

Sophie looked up at him. “Is that what was in the envelope?”

“Yep. I’ve been posing as a messenger to the office for the last few weeks, trying to pick up information on Lancaster, so when Eliot found the deeds in Lancaster’s office, it made sense just to pretend it was another delivery.”

Hardison sat on the end of his bed, crossing his legs and setting his computer in his lap. “Well, with the deeds you guys found and the files Sophie downloaded from Lancaster’s hard drives, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to return all of the properties to their original owners.” He flashed a grin at Eliot. “You continued our job on Lancaster without even knowing it.”

His gaze drifted to Nate. When he and J.B. had decided to go up against Lancaster, they hadn’t meant to get the deeds. They were just going to try to keep him away from Sunny. Eliot was the one who had changed the plan, once he realized how many other people Lancaster had hurt. It had been an unconscious decision—a realization followed by an instantaneous adjustment—and he wondered now how much of that had come from Nate’s influence. Without meaning to, without remembering the details… had he done what he’d thought Nate would do?

“I also went ahead and cancelled the hit on June,” Hardison went on. “And I might have sent an anonymous tip about where Lancaster’s contacts might be hanging out for the next few days, you know, just in case.”

“That’s right neighborly of you,” Nate said.

J.B.’s eyes were on Eliot. “Sunny’s fixing something to eat,” he said casually. He kept his expression neutral, but Eliot had a feeling he understood more than he would say. He sensed a similar struggle in J.B.—a past he wasn’t proud of, a strength forged through suffering. It was what had made Eliot trust him, in the end, and probably what had made J.B. extend a helping hand in the first place. They had each recognized something familiar in the other, something that ran deeper than names or backstories or questionable skills, and Eliot knew without out a doubt that if he needed him again, J.B. would answer. Eliot would do the same.

He met J.B.’s gaze and nodded, and J.B. nodded back.

“I’ll be back to check on you in a little bit,” he said, smiling. “Drink that water, all right?”

He backed out of the room, and Eliot obediently lifted his bottle to his lips.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sophie said, laying her hand on his arm. “Until your memory comes back completely, you’re a bit of a blank canvas. You have a chance to be whoever you want.”

He shot her an uncomfortable glance. That was too lucky a guess to be coincidence, and one look at the careful way she met his gaze was enough to convince him that yes, she was posing this question intentionally, and he wanted to change the subject and turn their attention away from his gaping insecurities, but she had her lips parted already, and the way she watched him said that she had anticipated that, too, and that she had another topic ready.

Whatever I don’t know, we’ll make up, she’d told him. Not a threat, but an offer.

He cleared his throat. “Anyone?”

“Anyone,” she said, squeezing his arm. “It’s the role of a lifetime.”

Hardison nudged Eliot’s foot. “How about a chef? You got crazy kitchen skills, man. You could open up a restaurant in Paris or something and serve all them fancy little plates with like two bites’ worth of food on ‘em. You know the ones.”

Eliot considered that. He had no specific memories of cooking, but the thought of sitting at a table filled with his team and his food gave him a warm, contented feeling.

But Sophie was shaking her head. “No, no, that’s too obvious. I think—hmm, let’s see—I think you’d be a dancer.”

“A what?” Hardison laughed.

“It’s perfect!” Sophie said when Eliot wrinkled his nose. “You’ve got the athleticism for it, you know how to lead and how to follow in a fight—it’s not that different from dancing. I bet you’d be so good in an improv competition.”

“I think he’d be a pirate,” Parker said.

They looked at her, and she shrugged and turned her attention back to her lock. “Then you could have a parrot.”

“You can have a parrot without being a pirate,” Hardison said.

“I stole a parrot once,” Sophie said. “Horrid little thing. It started yelling just as I was making my getaway.”

Nate leaned his hip against the dresser and raised his eyebrows at Eliot. “What about a cowboy?”

Eliot groaned, but Sophie tapped his arm excitedly. “No, no, that could work—you can ride a horse, and you can pull off the hat. We could get you a little ranch in Texas, and you can sit out on the porch in a rocking chair sipping iced tea—ooh, I like that one.”

“I’m picturing more like a Gene Autry kinda thing,” Nate said, sounding far too serious for comfort. “A rodeo performer and a musician. Between the stunts and the singing, I think you’d keep busy.”

“What do you think, Eliot?” Hardison asked.

Eliot took another sip of water, sifting through the jumble of feelings and fragments of memory, aware of his team’s patient silence. He’d spent the last few days so worried about his past that he hadn’t given much thought to his future. The only skills he knew he had were in fighting, and he’d assumed that made him a violent man. But Sophie had looked at that knowledge and said he could be graceful instead of dangerous. Hardison believed he could create something to share with others. Parker… well, Parker had called him a thief, but that was probably a compliment for her.

And Nate. Back in Lancaster’s office, Nate had said he was a good man. It was what made Eliot decide to go with him, even though he still hadn’t settled on the truth, even though every clue he had suggested the opposite. He’d wanted to believe Nate’s words. He’d wanted to live up to them.

Maybe he wasn’t a good man yet. But maybe it was enough that he wanted to be.

“Eliot?” Sophie said quietly.

Eliot looked at her, then at Parker and Hardison tucked against him on the bed, and finally at Nate. “I want to help people,” he said at last. “With you. That’s what we do?”

Nate smiled. “That’s what we do.”

Sophie rubbed his arm again and sat back in her chair. “You should rest,” she said, smiling reassuringly as she gave him one final pat and stood. She touched Nate’s shoulder as she went past, and he pushed away from the dresser to follow.

“Make sure he stays in bed,” he said, fixing Hardison and Parker with firm looks. Then he nodded to Eliot and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “It’s good to have you back,” he said.

Eliot nodded back. It was good. He was good.

Or if he wasn’t yet, he would be.

Eliot woke to darkness. Not complete darkness—a sliver of light winked over his face, and he turned his head to avoid it.

“I can’t see how that’s comfortable,” said a voice in the hall.

Eliot opened his eyes. He was still in bed, lying on his back with a warm weight over him. Light from the hallway cast a long golden stripe over his right side, illuminating a pair of feet propped up on the mattress next to his hip. He followed the feet to their ankles and knees—upon which his sprained wrist rested, elevated above his heart—and up crossed legs until he recognized the still form of Hardison on the chair beside him. His arms were folded over his chest and his eyes were closed, his head tipped back on the backrest, his breathing deep and peaceful.

“It’s hard to explain,” said a new voice. Eliot blinked, trying to focus his blurry vision on the figure in the doorway. Nate. He spoke in a whisper, and Eliot tilted his head reflexively toward his words. “Eliot doesn’t normally show his vulnerabilities. It won’t sit easy with him, being out of commission like this. He won’t rest well if he doesn’t know where the team is.”

“I see,” said the first voice—it took Eliot’s muddled thoughts a moment to match Sunny’s name to it. “I suppose it’s reassuring to them, too, after all you’ve been through.”

Them. Eliot looked down at his chest, at the golden hair tucked against his neck, the head pillowed on his shoulder, the arm sprawled across his ribs. Parker had one leg draped over his, covering as much of his body as she could without actually lying on him, as though trying to physically hold him down.

“He’s a light sleeper,” Nate went on softly. “At least now when he wakes up, he’ll know he’s safe. He won’t be compelled to search for us.”

“J.B. told you about that, huh?”

Nate was silent for a long moment. “This won’t be easy on him,” he said again. “When he starts to remember… They’re not all good memories. And from what J.B. said, it probably won’t all come back at once. He may remember the worst first.”

“How bad was the worst?” Sunny asked.

“Bad.”

A cold thread of worry wound around Eliot’s throat. He didn’t want to lose the progress he’d made, didn’t want to go back to fearing his past. He shifted toward the door without meaning to, lifting his head and shoulders, as if he could get anywhere with Parker and Hardison penning him in.

As if proving a point, Parker sighed in her sleep and burrowed deeper into his side.

“He’ll need us,” Nate said. “And he’s not used to needing anyone. And Parker and Hardison—” He paused, his voice low and fond. “They want to make sure he knows he’s not alone.”

Eliot relaxed into the mattress. Was that what they were doing? Placing themselves in such a way that he couldn’t possibly miss them? Making sure he felt their presence even when he wasn’t awake?

Parker’s fingers twitched on his chest, and Eliot looked down to find them resting on his necklace charm. She must have put it on him while he slept—which spoke to both her skill and his exhaustion—and the sight of it now filled him with determination.

He’d made a promise, and she’d returned it. However difficult the coming weeks might be, he would come through it—because he could do hard things, the things others couldn’t do, and he wouldn’t be doing them alone. 

“That’s a blessing,” Sunny said quietly. “How long do you think you’ll stay?”

“We’ll give him a few days to heal up,” Nate said. He eased the door closed, but his voice still filtered through to Eliot’s straining ears. “I think we’re all ready to go home.”

“Well, if you’re ever around this way again…”

“You have my number,” Nate said. “Call any time. We’ll make sure to visit.”

Eliot closed his eyes, lying back on the soft pillow with one hand resting on Parker’s side and his other across Hardison’s knees. Nate and Sophie were safe, and Sunny was safe, and J.B. and Miguel would take care of anything he couldn’t until he was on his feet again. Despite what Nate had said, he wasn’t in any hurry to return home.

As far as he was concerned, he was already there.

Chapter Text

“For the last time, Parker,” Eliot said through gritted teeth. “I can go to the bathroom by myself.”

“J.B. said I shouldn’t let you walk without your crutch,” Parker said.

Eliot threw a hand toward the door. “I’m going twelve feet. I don’t need a crutch.”

“J.B. says you do.”

“J.B.’s a medic. He has to say that. But I’ve done a lot worse on a damaged leg than walk across a hall, all right? I’ll be fine.”

Parker’s eyes widened. “Did you remember something?”

Damn. He hadn’t meant to bring that up, but it was too late to take it back, and he couldn’t lie to her. The truth was bad, but somehow, to her, a lie would be worse.

Deflection it was.

“Give me that,” he grumbled, gently jerking the crutch out of her extended hand. He limped to the bathroom, barely resisting the urge to slam the door behind him. It had been three days since the explosion—the latest explosion—and his patience decreased with every passing hour. Rest, they kept telling him, and he was trying, but he couldn’t just lie in bed all day until J.B. decided he was well enough to be a person again.

He set his hands on the bathroom counter, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. No, that wasn’t the problem—not the whole problem, anyway. If he was going to get through this, he had to be honest with himself. Recovery was irritating, but he’d been through worse, and he did enjoy the quiet moments when Sophie came to sit with him, or when Nate gave him summaries of their previous jobs, or when Hardison worked silently at the desk in his room while he dozed, or when Parker napped curled up at the foot of his bed like a cat.

The problem was the memories.

Most of them came in his dreams: fragments of images stitched together with bursts of fear, of anger, of pain. He woke in a panic, hour after hour, not sure if he was in an interrogation cell or a South American jungle or a frozen, isolated cave. 

If the blood he imagined on his hands was his own, or someone else’s.

Hardison and Parker had taken to sleeping on an air mattress beside his bed, and he tried his best not to wake them, but the night before he’d jolted awake in the early hours of the morning to find Hardison tapping on his computer with his back against the bed. He didn’t say anything—didn’t even look Eliot’s way—but he was sure Hardison had heard him.

He’d already put them through so much. He didn’t want to add this burden as well.

Sighing, he turned on the faucet and washed his face in cold water, savoring the sharper sensation against the warmth and comfort in which he’d been wallowing. A deep-rooted, unconscious instinct warned him that he couldn’t afford to get soft, that it was dangerous to get complacent, and it chafed at him every time someone told him he should be relaxing. He wanted to—wanted to ease their worries and prove that he was getting better, that he could pull his own weight—but each new memory made him withdraw further into himself, afraid to show his vulnerability.

Eliot ran his left hand through his hair, careful to avoid the still-healing cut in his scalp. This couldn’t continue. He needed to get a hold of himself, figure out how to process his issues, and move on. He needed to be useful again.

First: a good night’s sleep. He’d tried to be on his feet as much as possible today, hoping to wear himself out before bed, and he was feeling the strain in his muscles. He finished washing up and changed into a new pair of sweatpants and a clean shirt—Hardison had gone to buy him extra clothes, and to replace the ones he’d ruined of Sunny’s—and stumped back to his room.

Parker was already tucked into the space between the air mattress and the bed, submerged beneath a pile of blankets Sunny had crocheted the winter she’d slipped on the ice and broken her foot. “Took up every new hobby I could find to keep myself from goin’ stir crazy,” she’d told Eliot the day before. “I still have my hooks and yarn in the basement if you want to give it a try.”

He wasn’t quite that desperate, but it was getting close.

Carefully, he turned off the light and leaned his crutch against the end of the bed. Maneuvering into it without stepping on Parker was a little tricky, but he managed, letting out a little sigh as his sore muscles relaxed against the mattress.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Parker said, her voice muffled beneath the blankets. “Was it?”

“Why sleep on the floor when you’ve got an air mattress right there?” Eliot countered.

“I don’t like how it dips when Hardison isn’t there.”

Hardison was still downstairs, but he’d be up in a few hours, if the last few nights were any pattern. Whether or not he slept on the air mattress was another matter. He had the first night, but the second, he’d spent as much time at the desk as the mattress. The night before, Eliot wasn’t sure he’d slept at all.

“You sure you’re comfortable?” Eliot asked, peering doubtfully over the side of the bed.

Parker poked her face out of the covers. “Yep. It’s cozy.”

Eliot laid back, closing his eyes against the light from the open door. “You don’t have to go to bed now,” he said. “Everyone else is still awake downstairs. I can handle a few hours on my own.”

“I’m tired,” Parker said.

He considered that. She’d been sleeping almost as much as he had over the last few days, and he had no idea whether that was normal for her. Her voice had been cheerful enough, and there was nothing to make him think she was lying—but he did, suddenly, inexplicably. Or maybe not lying, but... withholding.

Like he was.

“Parker?” he said, quietly, listening to the sound of her shuffling the blankets again.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

She hesitated just a second too long. “Yeah.”

“Because if you’re not...”

“I am,” she said. “Are you?”

“...Yeah.”

“Okay, then.” She settled back into her burrow of yarn, and he let her. He had no right to force her to talk, and he preferred to leave the offer open rather than keep digging on his own. He wanted to think she’d come to him eventually, if something was bothering her. 

He laid back, resting his right hand on his stomach and folding the other behind his head. “Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

The hours passed in stretches of restless dozing, punctuated by bursts of wakefulness when the dreams started. They weren’t as disturbing tonight—no faces in his crosshairs, no bones breaking under his hands—but several times he woke and had to check to see which injuries he still had and which had healed long ago. Hardison came in sometime after the fourth nightmare, and he sat with his back to the desk and the glow of his laptop lighting his face as he worked on who knew what. Eliot rolled to his side, then his stomach, then his back again, finding he slept better when the faint computer light touched his eyelids. Hardison hummed a few times, the melody low and soothing, and Eliot listened for it each time he woke. 

He’d just faded off to a wordless rendition of “Imagine” when a wrenching cry ripped him awake. He shot upright, swinging his legs for the side of the bed before he remembered his healing gunshot wound, and pain knifed up his thigh and down to his foot. He froze on the edge of the mattress, hissing in a breath through his teeth, listening.

“Parker,” Hardison said softly. “Parker, look at me.”

Eliot blinked in the laptop light until he could make out the shape of Hardison kneeling on the air mattress. Parker was still bundled under her blankets, and the whole pile trembled as she shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said, breathless. “I’m sorry, Eliot. Go back to sleep.”

Eliot relaxed his grip on the bed, breathing out through his nose to soothe the pain still pinching his leg. “What happened?”

“Nothing—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

A frown pulled at his eyebrows. Already regretting the movement, he slid to the end of the bed and eased over the side, settling onto the air mattress as carefully as he could without showing how much he hurt. Parker was still buried in her blankets between the air mattress and the bed, but she lifted her head when Eliot sat beside her.

“Move,” he said.

She did, shuffling her crocheted mountain out of the way so Eliot could push the mattress against the bed. Then he sat, clenching his teeth together to hold in his pain as he bent his right leg, and patted the space beside him.

“I’ve been having nightmares,” he said, without preamble, without emotion. “Memories. Some of them are—a lot. It’s all a lot. I wake up sometimes and don’t know where I am.”

Somewhere under the blankets, Parker sat in the space he’d indicated and drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around them.

Hardison settled on her other side. “I’ve been afraid to sleep,” he admitted in a low voice. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up back at the hotel, after we talked to the medical examiner. If I wake up and you’re not there...” He cleared his throat and tipped his head back against the bed. “So I’ve been coming in here and working on stuff, just... keeping an eye on you. Making sure you’re still here.” He tilted his head to look at Eliot and flashed a wan smile. “Is that creepy?”

“Yes,” Eliot deadpanned, and Hardison’s smile got wider.

Parker leaned forward to put her chin on her arms. “I know they’re just dreams. I don’t need you to tell me it’s not real.”

“It is real,” Eliot said. He didn’t look at her, but when he saw her turning toward him in his peripherals, he leaned his shoulder against hers. “Whatever you dreamed about might not be real, but the emotions are. You still have to deal with them.”

She pulled a blanket tighter around her back. “How?”

“Dunno. ‘M still working on it.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Hardison asked.

Eliot turned, not sure if the offer was for him or Parker. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to open up the wounds he was still trying to examine himself, but he could hardly encourage Parker to share her problems if he wasn’t willing to do the same. All he had to bargain with was himself, but if the last few days were any indication… that was all she wanted.

He opened his mouth, but Parker shifted against his arm and let out a long, loud sigh. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” she said. “I want to go back to just feeling happy when I’m with you, instead of being afraid something will take you away. Is that... will that ever go away?”

He looked over her head at Hardison, who reached out to wrap his arm around her shoulders. “Come here, girl,” he said, but pressed himself closer instead of pulling her toward him. “This all... this is still fresh. A new wound. It’s still bleeding.” His eyes were on Eliot, and he lifted the hand on Parker’s shoulder to touch Eliot’s as he went on. “It’s gonna hurt for a while. All we can do is keep it covered while it heals.”

“Covered with what?” Parker asked.

“New memories,” Hardison said. “Good ones. Ones to go over the hurt, until it doesn’t hurt so much.”

Eliot closed his eyes. Most of his memories were new right now, so he had the benefit of extra perspective. And as much as he appreciated—and agreed with—Hardison’s suggestion, he wondered if something familiar might be better tonight.

“I remember meeting you,” Eliot said. He kept his eyes shut, but he could feel their gazes on his face. “That first job we all did. Nate set up the meeting, and I thought... I don’t know, I was curious. I wanted to know what you two could offer that I couldn’t do on my own.”

“You mean besides your nonexistent computer skills?” Hardison asked.

Eliot let out a huff of laughter. “The geek stuff, yeah. Jumping off buildings. But Nate was right, about us being able to do more together. About being better together.” He tilted his head and opened his eyes. “It isn’t just during jobs.”

Parker bumped her arm against his. She didn’t say anything, but he could hear her meaning as clearly as if she’d spoken out loud, as clearly as he’d heard her when he’d thought she was gone.

He pressed against her, passing the message back, and she exhaled.

He woke an hour later, still sitting on the air mattress, with Parker’s head on his shoulder and Hardison lying across their feet. His back ached from the awkward position, but Parker and Hardison were breathing softly, and he wasn’t about to risk waking them just to get more comfortable. With a sigh, he stretched out his neck, settled his cheek against Parker’s hair, and went back to sleep.

It was getting better, and it was getting worse. He could tell what was real, most of the time—when he woke up in a jumble of emotions and images, he could place them like map pins in his mind. One was from his second tour, another from his third job with the team. The first dish he cooked after meeting Toby. His high school girlfriend. His first kill. His first disobeyed order. Moreau. Nate. Hardison buried alive. Sophie walking away… coming back. Parker trapped by the Steranko. He lined them up like books on a shelf, like numbers in a ledger.

Like notches in a gun.

It was pain that pulled him out of sleep this time; he’d slept almost dreamlessly for the first time in a week, but his leg burned under its bandage. The sky outside his window was dark. Hardison snored on the air mattress, with Parker tucked between him and the side of the bed, her face relaxed in sleep. Eliot lied still for a few moments and listened to their breaths in the silence.

Then he rolled to the edge of the bed, careful not to step on the air mattress as he stood and crept from the room. His crutch leaned against the wall beside the door, and he was sore enough to use it as he made his way into the hall. The house was quiet, but he didn’t want to lie in bed any longer. His hands itched to do something productive, something other than resting and recovering and talking about his feelings.

Slowly, keeping near the wall and avoiding the squeaky spots he’d discovered over the last week, Eliot eased down the stairs and limped into the kitchen. Sunny had left the light over the sink on, and it was plenty bright enough to find a wash cloth and soap. He started with the obvious surfaces—table, counters, stove—but Sunny kept a clean kitchen, and only ten minutes had passed by the time he finished. A tougher job, then. He moved on to the oven, pulling out the racks, scrubbing off the baked-on messes, the grease stains, the spills. That took a while longer, and by the time he finished, it was after 6.

Eliot tossed his hair out of his face and surveyed the kitchen. Cleaning was numbing, methodical, almost compulsory—but it wasn’t enough. He needed to fix something, build something... create something.

He looked down at his unbandaged hand. Old scars covered the knuckles, and he could see the evidence of poorly healed breaks in some of the fingers. Tools of violence, bearing the marks of fights he couldn’t remember, fights he doubted he’d be able to separate even after his memory returned. What could he make with such hands?

“Teach me to like stuff.”

Eliot’s fingers twitched. Parker’s voice preceded the full memory, echoing like a half-remembered song, and he let it play through his mind as he stared at the scars on his hand.

He pushed a plate toward her, but she looked up at him and shook her head. “It’s just food.”

“It’s not just food, all right? Some people could look at it and see just food, but not me. I see art. When I’m in the kitchen, I’m—I’m creating something out of nothing.”

He opened his eyes. He’d come to appreciate the way his body had held onto the skills he needed to make it back to the team—muscle memories built through hundreds of fights, earned through sweat and blood and loneliness. But there were other hints coming to the surface, flashes of insight too quick to examine. Knife handles held loosely, his wrist rolling with easy movement as he chopped instead of stabbed. Tender leaves and herbal smells under his fingertips. Tactile memories that, for once, had nothing to do with pain.

Hardison had said he could cook. If his body could remember how to destroy, couldn’t it remember how to make?

A quick search of the kitchen yielded a few promising results—flour, sugar, eggs—and he found a mixing bowl and spoon in the cupboards and drawers. He mixed flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt with eggs and butter and vanilla extract, and then, when he couldn’t find any heavy cream in the refrigerator, made a buttermilk substitute from milk and vinegar. The motions felt familiar, even with his left hand, and he let himself fall into the rhythmic scraping of spoon against bowl, over and over and over in the quiet kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

Eliot flinched. He registered the voice as Miguel’s half a second after he reacted, which was half a second too late. He took a moment to compose his expression before he turned, hoping his face didn’t look as red as it felt. “Cooking.”

Miguel stood in the doorway, and the quirk of his lips said he’d noticed Eliot’s response. “Why?”

“You don’t eat?” Eliot said, making a vague gesture with his spoon.

Miguel’s face twitched, and Eliot got the impression he was repressing a smile. “Why are you cooking so early?”

“I was up.”

Miguel moved to the counter beside him and took the empty pot from the coffee maker. “I guess that thing about 90 minutes was true, then. Hate to see what you could do when you’re fully rested.”

“Didn’t figure you’d want to see me at all after this,” Eliot said.

“Hmm.” Miguel glanced at the brace on his wrist and then back to the coffee pot. “I don’t. But I think maybe Sunny wouldn’t mind if you came to visit.”

“I won’t be going anywhere for a few days yet,” Eliot muttered, leaning heavily on his good leg. He sprinkled some flour on a cutting board and pressed the dough into a rough circle. Miguel filled the pot at the sink and scooped coffee into the filter. When the water started percolating, he leaned his back against the counter and nodded at the cutting board.

“What are you making?”

Eliot cut through the middle of his dough and answered without looking up. “Scones.”

“Where’d you learn to make those?”

The question was innocent, just casual conversation, and Eliot was relieved to feel nothing worse than impatience when he didn’t have an answer. He fell back on J.B.’s line.

“Picked it up a ways back.”

Miguel snorted. “You two should put that on t-shirts.”

When the coffee was finished, Miguel poured two cups and set one on Eliot’s left side. “I never learned to cook,” he said, cautiously, like he was expecting Eliot to mock him for the admission. He had no interest in that, but it seemed like Miguel wanted to talk, so Eliot flicked his gaze up to show he was listening and went on cutting the dough.

“Sunny tried teaching me a few times,” Miguel said. “But I was never any good. Don’t have the patience for it.”

“You’ve been with her a long time, huh?”

“On and off since I was a kid.” Miguel took a sugar bowl out of the cupboard, then moved to the fridge and poured some milk into a creamer. “The others don’t stay as long. This isn’t a real shelter—not anything registered—so Sunny doesn’t get any resources to keep it running. She just helps the people she can, the ones who can’t go anywhere else. People with pasts. Dangerous people. And maybe it’s wrong of me,” he added, with another hesitant glance at Eliot. “But I don’t trust most of them. Not everyone knows not to bite the hand that gives them food.”

“Nothing wrong with being careful,” Eliot said.

“I’m worse than most of the people she takes in,” he said, shrugging. “Can’t go to the shelters because of my record, can’t get a real job… on paper, I don’t look like I can be trusted either.”

“It’s hard to fit a man’s whole life on paper.”

Miguel flashed him a grin. “That’s what Sunny says. She always welcomes me back, puts me to work fixing something. The railing, the sink, whatever. Sometimes I think she breaks things just to give me something to fix. Something good to do, instead of whatever trouble I might get myself into.” He shot a shrewd look at Eliot as he placed his scones carefully on a baking sheet. “With that money your friends helped her find, she won’t have to worry about finding things to fix no more. She’s always talked about buying a bigger house, something with more rooms, more resources. She’ll be able to help a lot of people.”

“And you?” Eliot asked.

Now that he’d unleashed it, Miguel’s smile was quick and bright. “I suppose I’ll keep busy.”

“Sunny will need some help herself,” Eliot said, keeping his voice casual. “A lot of people will want a piece of what she’s got now.”

“They’ll have to go through me.”

Eliot slid the scones into the oven. “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

They were silent then, drinking their coffee and enjoying the smell of the baking scones. Eliot limped over to the little table after a while so he could sit, and Miguel waved him down when the timer went off and pulled the scones out of the oven himself. “Some of those people Sunny helps,” Miguel said, tossing the dish towel he’d used as an oven mitt onto the counter. “They come to her when they’re lost. Sunny has a way of orienting people, putting their problems in perspective.”

“She took me in when she had every reason not to,” Eliot said, meeting Miguel’s gaze across the table. “And I won’t forget it.”

Miguel picked a hot scone off the stove and blew on it. “That’s good. She seems to like you, for some reason.”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” Eliot said.

Miguel grinned. “She likes me, too.”

“Like I said.”

With a short laugh, Miguel took another scone and sauntered out of the kitchen. “You better make more,” he said over his shoulder. “I like a big breakfast.”

Eliot drained his coffee, got up, and started another batch.

The goodbyes were harder than he expected. 

They made them in the yard under a picturesque blue sky, with the morning stretching out before them like a beginning, which helped. Over the last ten days, Sunny’s little house had started to feel more confining than safe, and Eliot was ready to go back to his own kitchen, his own bed, his own clothes. Nate and Sophie were already waiting in the van, and Eliot had left Parker and Hardison with J.B. and Miguel so he could give Sunny his final words of thanks.

He’d told himself to stay cheerful, but when Sunny reached out to hug him, he felt the first prickle of regret since J.B. had said he was well enough to travel. Everything he’d wanted to say fled his mind, so he lifted himself up to kiss her cheek and held her tightly when she sighed into his hair.

“You saved my life,” he murmured.

Sunny squeezed his back. “Oh, sugar. Someone had to.”

Eliot laughed, and Sunny held him out by his shoulders and looked him over, her eyes shining above the yellow scarf he’d crocheted when his boredom grew unbearable. “Now you keep out of trouble,” she said sternly. “I don’t want to hear anything about you being reckless again.”

In a show of excessive restraint, he kept the words “yes, ma’am” off his tongue and nodded instead. “As long as you promise the same,” he said.

“Me?” Sunny said, offended. “There’s nobody left to bother me that Miguel can’t take care of. And J.B. is still in the neighborhood.”

Eliot looked across the sidewalk to where J.B. stood shaking Hardison’s hand. “He’s leaving, then?”

“In a few days,” Sunny said. Her gaze followed his, and a smile touched her lips. “I don’t think he’ll go far, though. The boy can’t brew a decent cup of coffee to save his life. He’s already bought me some extra to keep on hand for when he comes to visit.”

Relief poured through him. He’d wanted extra support for Sunny, true, but he had a feeling J.B. needed her just as badly. “You’ll call if you need anything,” he said, keeping his tone just shy of an order.

“As long as you promise to visit,” she countered.

“I will.”

“Good,” Sunny said, her eyes crinkling in the corners. “I know you keep your promises.”

He tore himself away from her to shake Miguel’s hand, reminded J.B. to take it easy for a few weeks now that he’d collected his pay check for the Lancaster job, and followed his team to the large black van parked in front of the house. Lucille, his memory supplied, after a few moments of grasping for the name. He didn’t remember why Hardison was so attached to the thing, but he was pleased to have something to start with. It was getting better, slowly, and he was content to let his memory trickle back in bits and pieces as long as the others were there to fill in the gaps.

“Ready?” Hardison asked, looking at Eliot in the rearview mirror as he settled into the back seat. J.B. had made him bring his crutch along, but he’d left it on the floor between the door and the seat while he’d said his goodbyes. The rest of his things—the clothes Hardison had bought him, mostly, since apparently he didn’t travel with luggage—were packed with the others’ in the back, and the cooler full of sandwiches and drinks that Sunny had sent along with them was tucked behind the passenger seat.

Eliot settled back and stretched his right leg out in front of him. “Ready.”

From the passenger seat, Parker waved out the window as they pulled away from the house, shouting goodbyes until they turned the corner and Sunny, J.B., and Miguel were lost from sight. Then she squirmed around in her seat and tore the lid off the cooler, digging through with one hand while Hardison cast her concerned looks from behind the wheel.

“You just ate breakfast,” he said. “You can’t need a sandwich already.”

“Sunny packed some cereal for me.”

“How are you still hungry?” Hardison pressed. “Between Eliot’s pancakes and Sunny’s eggs, I don’t think I’m ever gonna eat again.”

Parker sat up with a bag of cereal in her hand, grinning. “It’s a road trip! You’re supposed to have snacks.”

“Not thirty seconds down the street!”

In the seat beside Eliot, Sophie leaned forward to set her hand on Hardison’s shoulder. “Let her enjoy this. It’s been a while since you’ve driven anywhere long distance.”

“Easy for you to say,” Hardison muttered. “You’re gonna miss it all.”

Eliot closed his eyes, enjoying the sounds of their voices in the small space, and started a few of the leg stretches J.B. had told him to do on the ride. They’d be dropping Nate and Sophie off at the airport before making their way to the highway, and then across the country back home to Portland. It wasn’t worth the drive, in Eliot’s opinion, but Hardison had refused to let anyone bring Lucille back without him, and Parker insisted that Eliot’s leg would explode if he tried to fly.

“It’s not going to explode,” Eliot had grumbled back at the house, rolling his eyes and waiting for J.B. to back him up.

But Parker had evidently gotten to him first, because he’d just sighed and said, “Yes, because of the... uh, air pressure. Flying would be far too dangerous. I recommend driving.”

Eliot had glared at him, but J.B. only shrugged and mouthed, “She scares me,” before abandoning him to a 26 hour drive with absolutely no hint of remorse. Nate had come in two minutes later with the news that he and Sophie would fly so they could “get things ready” for Eliot’s return. He figured they just didn’t want to be trapped in the van for three days.

“All right,” Parker bubbled as soon as Nate and Sophie were safely at the airport. “J.B. said we should stop every four hours to let you stretch—”

“Hell no,” Eliot said. “It’ll take us a week to get there!”

“—so I found some places we can go,” Parker continued, ignoring the interruption. “There’s a cowboy museum here in the city—”

“No,” Eliot and Hardison said together.

Parker glared at them. “Not to visit. To steal from.”

“What do you want to steal from the cowboy museum?” Hardison asked.

“Well, I probably won’t know until I see it,” Parker said. “But if you don’t want to go there, we can pick another place. Like—what about the UFO Watchtower in Colorado? Ooh, or the Flaming Praying Mantis in Las Vegas!”

Hardison shot her a look. “The what?”

“It shoots fire!”

“Is this how it normally goes?” Eliot asked. 

Hardison glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Uh… kinda depends. We stop more when Nate isn’t in the car. He makes us drive straight through.”

Eliot eased back and closed his eyes. “Pretend Nate is here then.”

But apparently in the Republic of Lucille, Parker’s vote held the most weight. They ended up stopping at half a dozen dusty roadside locations, and Parker insisted she and Eliot get out to explore each one while Hardison stayed in the car to nap. They wouldn’t let Eliot drive, and Hardison claimed it was safer for everyone if Parker didn’t take a turn behind the wheel, so Eliot grudgingly accepted the stops to give Hardison time to rest. Maybe he enjoyed some of them—or at least, he enjoyed Parker’s reactions to them—but he kept that to himself. She didn’t need any encouragement.

The rest of the time, Eliot was quiet, and they let him be. There were things he needed to sort through—emotions dug up by memories he wished he could have left buried. Questions. Worries. Anger. Grief. They cycled through him as the long hours ate away at the distance between them and Portland, as their destination took on details in his mind. He remembered a brew pub, a menu he’d helped design, the local suppliers he’d gotten to know. He remembered telling Anne and Rafe, the cooks who ran the kitchen when he was gone, about the new dishes he wanted to introduce when he returned from this job. He remembered chatting with the regulars who kept coming back for his meals, and remembered grudgingly admitting to himself, if not to Hardison, that he enjoyed the challenge of managing a gastropub.

He missed it. The closer they got, the more anxious he was to be back.

It was late when Hardison parked outside the brew pub, and Eliot was tired, but they’d driven through supper and were hungry enough to go inside instead of continuing on to their own homes. Sophie and Nate were waiting for them, and they’d kept the kitchen open so they could all order. Normally Eliot would have just thrown something together for them, but he was grateful for the chance to hobble around the tables, pretending to inspect the space while he stretched his legs. He ached—everywhere—but a sense of rightness settled over him as the familiar smells and sounds seeped in. Parker launched into an excited retelling of their roadside adventures while Hardison helped himself to Nate’s fries, and Eliot paused in front of a menu on the wall to listen.

His hand drifted to his pocket. It was late in Portland, and it would be even later by Sunny. Past midnight. He should wait until morning to check in, he knew he should, but he pulled out his phone anyway, found her number, and typed out a quick message.

We made it back to Portland.

He turned to rejoin the others, but before he could take a step, his phone vibrated in his hand.

How was the drive?

Eliot’s gaze drifted to where Parker was imitating the Flaming Praying Mantis statue. It was fine, he answered.

A few moments slid by, but he waited for the message he knew would come. The screen lit up just as Parker made an eerily accurate metallic screech to accompany her waving, imaginary-fire-covered arms.

I’m going to try that pancake recipe you gave me tomorrow, Sunny said. I might have a few questions.

A smile pulled at his lips. I’ll call you in the morning.

Talk to you then. Good night, sugar.

“Food’s ready!” Hardison called. Eliot looked up, still smiling at his phone like an idiot. He didn’t even care. Good night, he typed, sending off the message and tucking the phone back into his pocket as he went to rejoin the others. Parker stopped mid-way through her description of the mantis’s forelegs and shot him a measuring look. He winked at her. She grinned and launched back into the story.

Eliot ate with one hip hitched against the bar, half-turned toward the door so he could keep everyone in view while they talked. It was comfortable, the way they all settled back into themselves, and it worked something loose in Eliot’s chest as he chewed. He had that feeling again—like home was less a place and more a collection of the faces and voices that dominated his returning memories. Like he could sit there for hours and just listen to them laughing; like he could believe them when they said he wasn’t alone. The proof was in the empty-but-full brew pub, and the texts on his phone, and the list of treatment instructions in his bag. Given the kind of person he was—had been—a part of him still couldn’t believe that he’d managed to find a single friend, let alone a family. The rest of him thought it didn’t matter how it had happened. 

He was just thankful it had.

The call came 10 months later.

Actually, Eliot missed the call itself, and she hadn’t left a message—instead, he found two texts in the early morning hours after a long night out on a con.

Can’t talk. There’s trouble. Can you be here tomorrow?

Then, immediately after that one:

Please come.

Eliot waited just long enough to call Nate, who assured him that they’d be able to wrap up the rest of the con without him, and then Hardison, who got him a ticket on the next flight to Oklahoma City before he reached the airport. He’d called Sunny—no answer—and J.B.—no answer—and even Miguel—but it was before 6 a.m. there, and Eliot hoped that was the reason he couldn’t reach them.

He didn’t want to think about the alternative, but he’d spent most of his life doing what he didn’t want to do, and the worst scenarios filled his mind as the airplane sped too slowly through the air. Sunny’s newfound wealth was common knowledge now—she’d done interviews about it, highlighting the historical importance of the find and even donating some of it to local museums. She’d talked about the new shelter she was building thanks to the funds. Lancaster’s company had collapsed, but there were other thieves who would be more than willing to take advantage of a single, kindly woman.

And Eliot knew better than most how easy it was to make a death look like an accident.

The minute his plane touched down, he called again, leaving a string of increasingly aggressive voice mails when he failed to reach anyone. He checked in with Nate as he waited for a cab, swallowed his anxiety when Nate repeated that everything was fine on their end, and spat out Sunny’s address to the bewildered driver as his mind whirred through various plans of attack.

The car pulled up outside Sunny’s house, and Eliot dropped a wad of money in the front seat and tore out onto the sidewalk before they’d stopped moving. The house was quiet. Nothing moved inside as Eliot sprinted up the steps, and no one came to answer his barely controlled knocking. Eliot checked his phone again—still nothing—and lowered his shoulder to break down the door.

It opened a few seconds before he threw himself forward, which left him standing awkwardly off-balance as Miguel peered at him from the entryway. “You made it!” he said, blinking in combined surprise and, surprisingly, pleasure. “When we didn’t hear back from you, we thought—”

“Where’s Sunny?” Eliot demanded. He stayed where he was, adrenaline warring with cautious relief at Miguel’s presence.

Miguel tilted his head. “At the opening. It starts in an hour—I just stopped to pick up her cellphone. It died overnight, so she left it here to charge.”

“Then… she’s all right?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Miguel asked.

“I got a text from Sunny saying she was in trouble.”

Miguel blinked. “Oh. Oh, you thought—” He let out a bark of laughter, which had the contradictory effect of both comforting and irritating Eliot’s nerves. “No, everyone is fine. You misunderstood the text.”

“I did not misunderstand the text,” Eliot gritted out. “She said there was trouble and asked me to be here today.”

“I know what it said,” Miguel said. “I sent it.”

Eliot stared at him until he sighed and opened the door wider to let him in. “Come on. There’s some coffee left, and we have a little time. I’ll explain.”

Grudgingly, Eliot followed him into the house and sat at the familiar tiny table in the little kitchen. He let Miguel pour him a cup of coffee and then sat back in his chair, demanding answers with his silence.

“Okay,” Miguel said. “Sunny’s shelter is opening today, and she’s got a little ceremony planned; reception, press, everything. She sent you an invitation weeks ago, but we never heard back.”

“I didn’t get it,” Eliot said.

Miguel shrugged. “You’re out of town a lot, we get it—maybe it got lost in the mail or something, I dunno. Anyway, Sunny was going to call you about it, but she’s been trying to get things finalized for the opening, and the city council hasn’t been making it easy.” He broke off, his expression sheepish. “She asked me to get ahold of you.”

“And you thought 2 a.m. the day before the opening was the best time?” Eliot tried to keep the growl out of his voice, but the faint smirk on Miguel’s lips said he hadn’t quite succeeded.

“I forgot,” he said, swirling his coffee in his cup. “I didn’t remember until last night, and since I didn’t have my phone on me, I used Sunny’s. But hers was almost dead, so I only had time to send a text.”

“That mentioned nothing about the ceremony,” Eliot said.

“Well, I figured you knew about that,” Miguel said. “I know Sunny’s told you about it, even if you didn’t get the invitation. And I explained that Sunny couldn’t talk on the phone because she was dealing with some issues with the city.”

“No.” Eliot drew out the word, his eyes hard. “What you said was ‘Can’t talk, there’s trouble, can you be here tomorrow?’”

Miguel laughed. “Man, you’re even more paranoid than I remember. It’s not my fault you assumed…”

Eliot opened the message and held out his phone, and Miguel trailed off as he read it. “Hmm,” he said, glancing up when he finished. “Maybe I was a little vague. I was distracted.”

“I thought she was hurt,” Eliot snapped.

“But it got you here in time, didn’t it?” Miguel said brightly. “That’s the important part. Hurry up, we still have work to do.”

Eliot took his time with his coffee, making Miguel wait while he called to tell Nate Sunny was safe. It wasn’t much in terms of payback, but the impatient tapping of Miguel’s fingers on the counter was somehow more gratifying than annoying.

“Take your time,” Nate was saying, and Eliot brought his attention back to the call. “We’re all finished up here. No sense in rushing back.”

“Okay.” He glanced at Miguel and set his mug on the table. “Have Hardison look into our mail.”

“Why?”

“Sunny sent an invitation. Might’ve just gotten lost, but…”

“Right.” Nate was silent for a heartbeat, thinking—weighing Eliot’s paranoia against his own. “I’ll have him check it out.”

“And tell Parker not to touch the cookie dough in the freezer,” Eliot added.

“I’ll tell her.”

“Or my baker’s chocolate.”

“Fine.”

“Or—”

“Eliot,” Nate said. “I’ll keep her out of the kitchen. Don’t you have an opening to go to?”

Eliot sighed and ended the call. “All right,” he told Miguel, finishing his coffee. “Lead the way.”

The Elizabeth Classen Homeless Shelter stood on a freshly mown lawn, its doors open, its walls covered in welcome banners. A crowd of reporters waited outside, talking and posing and doing mic checks. Eliot looked them over as he followed Miguel to the door, filing away details that probably didn’t matter.

Habit and residual anxiety kept him from dismissing them completely.

Miguel led him into a reception area, and there, finally, was Sunny. She was on the phone at a large desk, her back to the door. “I sent that permit weeks ago,” she said, her tone stiff and impatient. “I have my own copy right here. Yes, I can bring another down to the office tomorrow morning, but I’m not delaying the opening. We’ve done everything we needed to do, and I won’t keep people out of a perfectly good building just because you lost my paperwork. No. No, I will not. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She slammed the phone down and sighed, then turned when she heard their footsteps. “Miguel, where have you been? I sent you for one thing—”

Her eyes widened when they met Eliot’s, and a smile as bright as her namesake broke over her face. She wore a pale blue dress with a cream jacket, and his yellow scarf was tied neatly at her throat. She looked tired, but her voice was as strong as ever. “You made it!”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Eliot said, shooting a glance at Miguel as he stepped forward to give Sunny a hug. She wrapped her arms around him, but something in the way her fingers gripped his shoulders made him pull back. “Is everything okay?”

“Now that you’re here?” Sunny said, beaming. “Everything is perfect. It’s good to see you, sugar.”

Eliot gave her a squeeze and stepped aside so he could talk to her while keeping an eye on the door. “Problem with the permits?”

She scoffed. “Nothing important. Just, every time I turn around, there’s another piece of paperwork missing, or a signature I need to chase down, or some problem with the mortgage. But it’s not stopping us. We’re opening today, paperwork or no.”

That brought his suspicion roaring back, though at least now he didn’t have the helpless anxiety to distract him. Sunny wasn’t alone. Hardison could take care of the paperwork from Portland, and if anyone tried to interfere with the opening, then…

Well. That’s why Eliot was there.

“Where’s J.B.?” Miguel asked, handing over Sunny’s phone.

She hooked a thumb back toward the door. “He’s out corralling the media. Seems like we’ve got every news station in the state out there. Must be a slow week.”

“I’ll give him a hand,” Eliot offered, and Sunny grinned.

“That might be a good idea. He was losing his patience when I left him.”

Eliot laughed to hide a burst of alarm. If J.B. was on edge, then there was a good chance there was more going on than Sunny was saying—possibly more than she knew. He left Sunny and Miguel at the desk and scanned the lawn as he reached the door, his gaze jumping between groups of people until he found a solitary man standing near a podium. It was set up before the largest welcome banner, and the reporters had started arranging themselves in a semicircle before it. Eliot slipped through the door and walked unhurriedly away from the crowd, circling around the building to come at the podium from behind.

J.B.’s attention was on the press, and the stiff set of his shoulders confirmed Eliot’s suspicions.

“Expecting trouble?” Eliot asked quietly.

J.B. turned his head, grinning at Eliot without looking at him. “Guess Miguel got ahold of you after all.”

“Came as soon as I could.”

J.B. nodded, sobering. “Glad to have you. Sunny doesn’t think there’s a problem, but I’m not so sure.”

“Does it have anything to do with her disappearing permits?” Eliot asked.

A reporter noticed Eliot’s arrival and motioned to her camera man; J.B. lowered his voice. “It might.”

“Anything else?”

“She’s been getting threats,” J.B. muttered. “Letters, phone calls—nothing traceable. She only told me this morning, but I guess it’s been going on for weeks.”

Anger twisted through the worry in Eliot’s stomach, fraying the edges into something harder to control. “What did they say?”

“She wouldn’t tell me all of it.” J.B. made a scoffing sound and turned his head, cutting off the reporters’ view of his lips. “But she gave me the latest letter. It warned her not to go through with the opening, that this area isn’t safe, and that there will be consequences if she ignores them again.”

“Who do you think it’s from?”

J.B. hitched a shoulder. “Kind of seems like someone wants us to think it’s gang-related. Sunny said there were a few mentions of turf wars and weapons, but Miguel doesn’t think that’s credible. He has a few connections, and he says none of the gangs are interested in the shelter except as that—a shelter.”

“Then who?” Eliot pressed.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Eliot didn’t need to ask if J.B. thought the threat was real—his stance told him that—and he made another surreptitious glance around the crowd. It was a usual collection of reporters and camera operators, with a handful of suits, probably local government staff, rounding out their numbers. Nothing obviously amiss, but the buzz of adrenaline running under Eliot’s skin told him not to let down his guard.

His pocket vibrated, and he pulled out his phone just long enough to read Hardison’s message—No issues—before the crowd turned to watch Sunny stepping out of the building with Miguel at her side.

“Do you want the front or the back?” J.B. murmured.

Eliot stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “You see anyone who looks like trouble?”

“No,” J.B. said. “But I got a bad feeling.”

“Me too. I’ll stay up here.”

J.B. nodded and slipped out into the crowd as Sunny made her way forward, smiling and waving at a handful of people she must have recognized. Eliot stepped back to make room for a man in a blue suit, who met Sunny at the podium and shook her hand enthusiastically.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said into the microphone, beaming as he drew Sunny forward. “As the head of the Homeless Alliance, I’m so pleased to welcome you here today. This building represents months of tireless work by many people, but no one has put in more time or effort than this woman here. Please allow me to introduce June Davidge, founder of the Elizabeth Classen Homeless Shelter, and the reason we’re all standing here today. Miss Davidge!”

He shook Sunny’s hand again and yielded the podium while the crowd clapped politely. Miguel moved aside and sent Eliot a questioning look behind her back.

“Thank you, Mr. Brackett,” Sunny said. “And thank you to everyone with the Homeless Alliance. I’m grateful for your support in making this dream a reality. It’s been a long time coming, and truth be told, I’m relieved the day is finally here. If I have to sign one more form, I think I’ll cry.”

The crowd laughed, and Sunny straightened a little pile of notecards on the podium and cleared her throat. “I want to thank the Homeless Alliance and all the folks with the Key to Home Partnership, as well as everyone at the Governor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness, for all your support in helping to build this shelter. You’ve all made the process so much easier, and I’m grateful for your hard work.”

More applause, which Sunny accepted with a nod. “Most of all, though,” she said, turning to reach a hand toward Miguel. “I want to thank my boys.” 

Miguel tried to dodge, but she caught his arm and dragged him forward. “First,” she said, trapping him against the podium with one large arm. “My Miguel, for standing by me through everything, and for all the help and comfort you’ve given me all these years. You’ve been the heart of this operation for a long time, and I never would have been able to do this without you.”

Amid the ensuing cheers, Miguel wrapped her in a hug and kissed her cheek. “Ay, jefa,” he breathed, squeezing her hands before backing up to stand by Eliot again. “Anything for you.”

She beamed and turned back to the podium. “I also want to thank J.B.,” she continued. “For being a friend when I had so few to lean on, and for keeping me safe when you had no reason to step into my problems. Without you, we wouldn’t be standing here now.”

From the back of the yard, J.B. ducked his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. Eliot tried and failed to keep a smile off his face.

Until Sunny turned to him.

“And finally,” she said, her voice softened by the distance she’d put between her and the microphone. “For his sizeable donation to the construction of this shelter, and for all the help he gave leading up to this moment, I want to thank my very dear friend…”

A blur of movement over Sunny’s shoulder drew Eliot’s attention, and the rest of her words faded out of his hearing. A car had turned the corner, its tires squealing, light flashing off its tinted windshield.

The barrels of two guns stabbed through the open windows. 

Eliot’s arms were around Sunny before she realized anything was wrong. The crowd flinched, and in his peripherals, he saw J.B. turning to face the street as he pulled Sunny down behind the podium.

The guns went off together, one shot following the other in almost the same moment. Someone screamed—Sunny gasped against his shoulder as he stretched out to cover her—Miguel hit the ground beside them. Another pair of shots split the air. Eliot lifted his head, scanning the walls of the building.

Smooth.

Miguel’s hand joined his on Sunny’s shoulder, a wordless promise to stay with her, and Eliot leaned back to see around the podium.

“J.B.,” he called.

Across the yard, J.B. was the only one still on his feet. “I heard it!” he yelled back.

The car sped past, both guns still firing, but Eliot stayed where he was and took in every detail he could before the car disappeared around the next corner.

Then he looked back at the crowd. In seconds he found what he was looking for—the disruption in the pattern. Where everyone else had sprawled over the grass with their hands over their heads, one woman was on her knees and facing the podium.

She noticed Eliot’s attention and looked away, but it was too late. He’d seen everything he needed to.

J.B. jogged toward him, his phone in his hand. “Sunny?” he asked.

“Miguel's with her.”

“I’ll call the police,” J.B. said. “Did you get the plates?”

“Yep.”

“You got this?”

Eliot nodded at the woman. “Yep.”

“Then I’ll leave the rest to you.”

The people around them were starting to sit up, calling out to one another, asking who was hurt. Eliot ignored them and made his way toward the woman. She was still on her knees, smoothing out the pencil skirt of her grey business dress, her eyes on the grass. Eliot stopped before her, folding his arms, waiting for her to look up.

At that point, there was no ignoring him. She raised her head cautiously, her face flushed. “Are they gone?”

Eliot tilted his head. “You tell me.”

“I don’t—” she sputtered. “How should I know?”

“You were the only one who didn’t go flat when the shooting started,” Eliot said.

Her eyes flashed. “You didn’t either. I saw you standing there when the car went past—you didn’t even try to get out of the way.”

“Didn’t need to,” he said. “There was no echo.”

The people nearby had started muttering, and a ring was forming around them. The woman scoffed and brushed at her skirt again. “What echo?”

“Those shots were blanks,” Eliot said. The murmurs grew louder, but when Eliot didn’t try to talk over them, they quieted to listen. “Me and J.B. can tell the difference in the sound of the report, but that’s not something I’d expect most civilians to be able to hear. How’d you know there wasn’t any danger?”

“I didn’t,” the woman insisted. She stood, and Eliot put out a hand to help her up before folding his arms again. She jerked out of his grasp and glared at him. “I couldn’t! And it doesn’t make any sense—why would the shooters use blanks? We know there’s a growing gang presence here. It’s a dangerous neighborhood, and—”

“Dangerous?” Eliot repeated. He turned his head until he found Brackett, the blue-suited head of the Homeless Alliance. “Is there a gang presence here?”

The man looked bewildered. “I wasn’t aware of any—”

“This is my ward,” the woman interrupted. “I know what’s happening here better than anyone.”

Eliot lifted his eyebrows. “Really? Then you serve on the city council?”

“I do,” she said proudly.

“Did you know that Sunny’s been getting threats?” Eliot asked. “Someone tried to pass them off as gang-related, but our contacts say there’s no connection. Why would a gang want to stop someone from opening a homeless shelter?” More questions rippled around them, but Eliot ignored them and went on. “The timing’s a bit suspicious, too—just this morning, Sunny had to deal with another paperwork issue that should’ve been handled weeks ago. Don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

The woman was silent. 

“And her mail’s gotten lost,” Eliot went on. “She sent out invitations to the opening, but I never got mine. I already had a friend of mine check that our mail wasn’t the problem.” He held up his phone, showing off Hardison’s No issues text. “For an event as big and as personal as this, you’d think there’d be a few more of Sunny’s friends, but all I see are reporters. Did anyone here get their invitation in the mail?”

His question was met with confused stares and shaking heads. Eliot looked back at the woman. “Not a single invitation was delivered? Sure seems like someone’s been trying to delay the opening. Maybe someone on the city council?”

“I didn’t—” she tried, but her voice came out in a whisper. She glanced at the cameras, which were now trained on her, and turned back on Eliot. “I didn’t do anything.”

“A gang wouldn’t have used blanks,” Eliot said softly. “But a councilwoman… she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to get hurt. She’d’ve just wanted to make Sunny rethink opening the shelter here. Maybe you had plans for this property. Maybe you’d have even offered to buy Sunny out after the shooting, huh?”

The woman paled, and Eliot lowered his voice. “Too bad for you—Sunny don’t scare easy.”

“Sarah,” Brackett said, his expression pained. “Is this true?”

 “You have no proof,” she said. Her voice was strained, and she cast around once more for support.

She found none. The lawn was silent—silent enough to hear sirens fast approaching, growing louder with every passing moment.

“I want a deal,” she said at last.

“That ain’t my department,” Eliot said, his voice too soft for anyone but her to hear. “You tell me no one else will bother Sunny, and I’ll make sure you get to the safety of a police station. You don’t, and I’ll tell the people you’ve been hoping to pin this on exactly what your plan was.”

Her eyes went wide, and after a moment of panicked stillness, she nodded.

The reporters went wild. A frenzy of questions rose up, but Eliot ignored them, ducking his head to avoid the cameras until the police arrived. Then he handed her over without a word and made his way to the podium, where J.B. was waiting with Sunny and Miguel. Miguel had his hand on Sunny’s arm, but a glance at her face told Eliot it wasn’t for support.

“Her secretary swore we’d open today,” Sunny snarled. “She didn’t even have the guts to lie to my face about it. Why would she do this?”

Eliot clicked his tongue and readjusted her scarf, which had gone askew when he tackled her. “The locals will get it out of her. She’s hoping for a deal.”

“She doesn’t deserve one.” Sunny drew in a long breath, watching the arrest with narrowed eyes. “If you weren’t here…”

“J.B. heard the same thing I did,” Eliot said. “You’d have been just fine. Miguel, did you get a look at the car?”

Miguel nodded. “I know all the rides the big players use in this area… that car wasn’t one of ‘em.”

“You may have to put that in writing,” Eliot said apologetically.

“Eh.” Miguel shrugged, his hand still on Sunny’s arm. “Better me than you. They’re gonna start questioning people soon. You might want to find another place to be.”

Sunny sighed and reached out to pat Eliot’s cheek. “He’s right. Don’t leave without saying goodbye, though, all right?”

“I’ll stick around,” he promised.

She smiled and stepped back, gesturing to J.B. “You go along, too. Make sure he sees it.”

Eliot shot him a questioning look, but he just salulted and ducked behind the podium, leading the way around the building to a back door, through the lobby, down a hallway, and finally into a wide room filled with tables. It was bright and clean, exactly the way Eliot expected a cafeteria run by Sunny to look, and he smiled.

“Not bad,” he said, craning his neck to see into the kitchen beyond a serving counter. “What kind of appliances did she—”

He stopped, blinking, as he took in the words painted in bold letters over the counter.

Spencer’s Kitchen

Eliot swallowed, then swallowed again, and J.B. folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Pretty nice, huh? I did the brushwork myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Eliot said.

J.B. raised an eyebrow. “I thought your memory had come back. Now you don’t recognize your own name?”

“That’s not what—I didn’t—” Eliot broke off, glaring at the grin on J.B.’s face. “Why?”

J.B. waved around the room. “The money from the Classen find got us started, but it wasn’t enough to fund the whole project. Your donation got us the rest of the way.”

“That wasn’t just me,” Eliot said. “The others helped, too—Nate, Hardison, Sophie, they all sent money, and Parker—I mean, Parker dropped off a bag of diamonds, but we got that straightened out, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, that was fun.” J.B.’s smile widened. “But Sunny’s been talking to Nate about this for months. We wanted it to be a surprise. Nate thought it would be best not to use your full name, and since we knew you as Spencer first...”

Eliot shook his head. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” J.B. said. “It’s just a wall.”

But it wasn’t just a wall, and J.B. knew it. And Sunny knew it—and Nate knew it, or he wouldn’t have agreed to keep it secret when Sunny brought it up. J.B.’s eyes were still on him, and there was a part of him that bristled at the knowledge that he was so known, but he resisted the urge to withdraw.

There was nothing to hide from here.

“A lot of us don’t get monuments,” he said at last.

J.B.’s expression softened. “That’s what I told Sunny. She put my name on the shelter’s clinic, and I said there were others who deserved the honor more. She told me I didn’t get to decide what she named anything, since it was her building, and that she’d honor whoever she wanted to honor. And if I didn’t like it, I didn’t have to look at it.”

Eliot laughed. He copied J.B.’s stance, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and breathed out the rest of the tension still coiled in his muscles. “What’d Miguel get?”

“Men’s dormitories,” J.B. said. “And I went ahead and painted Sunny’s name on the women’s hall when she said she was going to reuse Elizabeth Classen. Nate said not to put anyone else’s names on the building or the paperwork—he didn’t want any connections leading back to your team—but I hid a few things in the trim work. A diamond for Parker, a laptop for Hardison. Intertwined hearts for Sophie and Nate.”

Warmth pooled in Eliot’s chest. “Didn’t know you were a painter.”

“Sure,” J.B. said. “Picked it up a ways back.”

They stayed in the building while the police questioned the witnesses outside, drifting through the rooms and finishing up any chores they could find to do. When the lawn cleared and Sunny and Miguel came inside, Eliot accepted Sunny’s offer of a tour and happily followed her back through the building, basking in the pride in her voice as she described each room’s features. He even managed to thank her for the kitchen without embarrassing himself in front of Miguel, who bragged about his larger wing of rooms until Sunny told him to stop talking. J.B. trailed them like a shadow, inspecting vents and windows and hidden spaces and nodding at Eliot whenever Sunny turned away. When they were both satisfied that the building was safe, Eliot offered to cook a celebratory meal, and they returned to Sunny’s house in a tangle of relief and laughter. The worry that had obviously been weighing on Sunny was gone, along with J.B.’s anxiety and Miguel’s work load, and Eliot was ready to just enjoy their company without the fear of something bigger hanging over their heads.

They bundled into the tiny kitchen, refusing to leave when Eliot tried to claim the space for meal prep, and ended up pressing between and around one another as they divided up the tasks. Eliot put together a list of ingredients for Miguel to pick up, and Sunny washed vegetables for J.B. to chop while Eliot measured out flour and butter. When Miguel returned, he sat at the table and watched unashamedly as the others worked, until Eliot set a bowl of salad ingredients in front of him and told him to mix. Miguel complained, J.B. teased, Sunny threatened to kick them all out—and Eliot listened in contentment as he cooked. They ate in the kitchen, Sunny and Miguel at the table with Eliot and J.B. leaning against the counters, enjoying platesful of chicken florentine, steamed asparagus, garlic bread, and salad. Miguel insisted the salad was the best part of the meal. Eliot just looked at Sunny and smiled.

Later that night, when the kitchen was clean and the rest of the house was dark and quiet, Eliot sat on the bed in his room—“Always yours, sugar, any time you need it,” Sunny had told him—and dialed Nate’s number.

Nate answered on the first ring. “How’d the opening go?”

“A little excitement,” Eliot answered. “There are some things I’d like Hardison to keep an eye on before I’m ready to leave.”

“I’ll tell him,” Nate said. When Eliot didn’t answer, he added, “Is there something else?”

Eliot leaned forward to rest his left elbow on his knee. “The kitchen.”

“It was Sunny’s idea.”

“You went along with it.”

“Yeah.”

Eliot sighed. “I appreciate the sentiment. Really. But I didn’t do—”

“Eliot,” Nate said, and then paused as he thought through whatever he’d been about to say. He cleared his throat and went on in a slightly strained voice. “We talked about a funeral. Sophie brought it up, back when—when we found out about the bodies in the LanCast building. Sophie said you deserved to be honored.”

Eliot inhaled, straightening, but Nate wasn’t done. “You’re not likely to get that,” he continued. “I’ve been thinking about the talk we had, about what to do if things go bad on a job. About leaving your body behind.”

“You promised,” Eliot said sharply.

“I know.” Something that sounded like glass clinked against a table on Nate’s end. “I will. I don’t know when it will happen, or how, but you were right. It will probably be bloody. And depending on how bad it goes, you may not get a funeral.” He broke off, and Eliot could hear him swallowing. “Or a grave.”

“I don’t care about that,” Eliot said.

“No,” Nate said. “I know. But the others do. And if they can’t go to your grave—if they can’t say goodbye that way, then at least they can go to Sunny. They can go to a cafeteria with your name on it, and they can stand in the kitchen you helped build, and they can watch it feed the people you helped provide for. They deserve that… and so do you.”

The house settled, its pipes creaking in the soft, relenting way of a man letting out a long breath. Eliot was completely still. “And you?” he rasped.

Nate let out a dry chuckle. “Not me. I’m going first, long before the rest of you.”

Eliot heard the words he didn’t say, heavy in the silence: I can’t go through that again.

He closed his eyes. “I’ll be home in a few days.”

“Good.” Nate took a breath, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded almost normal. “Say hi to Sunny for us. And try to relax, all right?”

An uneven smile quirked up one side of Eliot’s mouth. “All right. You too.”

“Us too.”

Eliot hung up and laid back on the bed, letting his legs hang over the side as he stared up at the ceiling. His body was tired after the travel and anxiety and lack of sleep, but he wanted to stay awake and listen to the silence of the house and the distant traffic. In the morning, they’d go back to the shelter to welcome its first occupants, and Eliot would christen the kitchen with its first meal. He imagined the words on the wall, his name painted painstakingly by hand over the place where hundreds would eat, and thought about the symbols J.B. had hidden throughout the building. 

It wasn’t bad, as far as legacies went. Eliot closed his eyes, breathing in the smell of clean sheets and the lingering scents from the kitchen, and allowed himself to rest.

The End