Chapter Text
Unfettered
“The only certain freedom's in departure.”
The shot came as a surprise.
Why wouldn't it? Sure, they'd faced some pretty rough situations in their line of work, but the threats on their lives tended more toward 'crazy magical shenanigans' than it did 'bullets raining down upon them.' They weren't even on a job. They were getting a late lunch. Stone had parked the car maybe a block down from the hole-in-the-wall restaurant where he and Jones had decided to get some food; they had orders for Cassandra, Baird, and Jenkins in hand. (Though why they bothered with Jenkins, neither of them really knew. Every time anyone brought the man food, he set it aside with a grunt that may or may not have contained gratitude. Currently, the working theory was that the man just didn't eat, but that didn't explain the food actually disappearing during the course of the meal, so they were still tweaking that one.)
Jones and Stone were deep in some fairly normal bickering; the two couldn't be together without sniping at each other somehow. Over the course of a couple years working together, though, that bickering had eased from actually insulting one another to a good-natured banter. They still managed to get on each other's nerves often enough, but there was less actual hurt involved. They had found a good working relationship, filling in the gaps in each other's skills and knowledge almost instinctively as time went on. (Most of the time, at any rate. They were also two very strong and very distinct personalities.)
Unfortunately, neither of them had much experience with bullets. Give them a magical conundrum any day. It was a windy, cloudy day – no surprise in Portland in January – and Stone stopped in the sidewalk to adjust his jacket, half turning back toward the car as he patted his pockets. Fat droplets of rain were beginning to fall, cutting through the drizzle that had been omnipresent for the last three days.
“What are you doing?” Jones asked, stumbling to a stop. “It's freezing.”
“Can't remember if I locked the car.” Stone pulled the keys from his pocket and started to turn toward the black Challenger sitting at the curb, half a block behind.
That's when the shot echoed. Stone stumbled – at first Ezekiel thought that perhaps the echoing clap of the shot had startled him, but then the car keys hit the rough concrete, followed quickly by Stone himself. For a terrible moment, Jones just stood there, still among the suddenly panicking and milling people, staring at his fellow Librarian crumpled on the sidewalk.
Bullets weren't supposed to kill Librarians. Right?
Someone jostled him as they ran past and it spurred Jones to action. He dropped behind a car, pressed up against the wheel and fumbled in his pocket for his phone. Caught between not wanting to see Jacob motionless on the pavement and unable to tear his gaze away, he was slow to dial for help. His first instinct was to call Baird, because Guardians probably wanted to know when their Librarians were dead, but the coldly rational part of his mind had him dialing 911. He might be asked why he hadn't called and that wasn't a question he wanted to deal with.
Police sirens echoed before he could complete the call. Fine. That was okay with him. Jones pocketed the phone, leaned his head against the car, and took a deep breath. Don't panic, don't panic. He could do this. He'd done a million things more dangerous. (But no one had ever been that still and... shit, that was blood. Of course there was blood. Bullets meant blood.) Breathing hard even before he moved, Jones scampered to the car nearest Jacob and flattened himself down on the sidewalk, reaching out and just barely catching the outside of Jacob's bicep. He tried to ignore that there was blood pooling on the sidewalk, around his hand, staining his palm. He couldn't exactly check for a pulse there, but when he looked up, he saw Jacob's face turned toward him. Ice-blue eyes were at half-mast, clouded with pain, but looking straight at him. Jacob's fingers scrabbled over the pavement, just barely moving. But moving.
Okay, alive then.
Screeching tires came to a halt behind Jones, on the other side of the car he was taking refuge behind. Doors slammed, voices shouted, sirens echoed; it wouldn't have done a lick of good to say anything to Jacob right now. He'd never hear it above all the commotion. Jones inched forward, just enough to actually wrap his fingers around Jacob's arm, just above his elbow. He squeezed, gently as he could manage, which wasn't all that gentle because panic was doing a fine job of messing with him.
There was movement next to him and Jones glanced up to find a uniformed officer crouching beside him, gun drawn and aimed... at nothing really. Just covering them, which was actually kind of comforting, even as much as Jones really didn't like cops. (Thieves and cops never mixed well.) He was pretty sure someone – probably the cop next to him – yelled at him to stay down, but again. Commotion. Lots of noise. Also lots of panic.
Jacob blinked slowly; to Jones panicking mind, it seemed as if he was having trouble opening his eyes again. Jones tapped his arm, to try to garner his attention. His fingers had stopped moving. Jones wanted nothing more than to actually get over there and see what was going on. He also wanted to deny everything. Stone just fell, startled by the shot, and maybe smacked his head on the sidewalk in the process, right? That explained the blood starting to soak into the cuff of Jones' jacket, right?
Right. Sure.
Jones bit his lip and squeezed Jacob's arm, jostling it a bit as he did. Jacob grimaced when he did, breath catching as a groan escaped. Okay, so no moving that arm. Noted. Jones squeezed lightly in apology. For a moment, he let himself focus on the noise around them, picking out voices and trying to pick up any information needed. There wasn't much, but no other shots had started echoing in the gloom and someone was reporting a cleared nest somewhere. Officers were starting to relax a bit, beginning to focus more on victims than the scene.
Or, well, victim, in this case. Just the one.
Another siren broke through the noise; ambulance this time and Jones allowed himself a quick sigh of relief. Medical attention and then that'd be the end of it.
Right?
He'd never been so wrong.
Jones had finagled his way onto the ambulance, carefully not looking in Jacob's direction now that paramedics were bending over him. It had seemed to take forever before they had gotten to them – that was perhaps a side effect of the whole 'active shooter' situation – but when the paramedics had come, they had worked quickly. Jones had scooped the dropped car keys up from the pavement, an afterthought amid all the confusion.
The only consolation Jones had during the ride was that no one seemed to be particularly worried about Stone's continued survival. Sort of, at any rate. No one started CPR, anyway, though an oxygen mask was pressed to Stone's face. Good enough. Jones would take what he could get.
It was a whirlwind of activity that left Jones standing in the emergency waiting room, one hand sticky with drying blood and the other clutching his phone like a lifeline. Mechanically, he dialed a familiar number.
She answered on the second ring. “What's up, Jones?”
He spoke for the first time since Stone fell. “You better get over here.” He hung up – then shook his head at himself. Probably should have told her where 'here' is; she seemed to have the same thought, as his phone rang obnoxiously loud in the too-quiet room. He didn't bother with pleasantries. “Legacy Emmanual ER.”
Then he hung up again.
-----------
Eve Baird waited until the doctor turned away before she allowed herself to wilt a bit, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of her nose. Already, her mind was swirling with ideas. What to do next. How to find the shooter. She could lean on her NATO credentials and pull police records. Everything she could do – and a few she probably couldn't (or shouldn't) do – occurred to her in a harrowing litany, with barely any order.
“Stop that,” she whispered harshly to herself.
Some Guardian she was.
She turned back to the waiting room. Cassandra sat as close as she could to Jones, looking wide-eyed and terrified. Eve couldn't blame her. Jones had taken off his jacket, despite how cold it was in the room. It was folded carefully in his lap and Eve idly noted that the bloodied cuff was tucked away, out of sight. They both looked up at her, expressions nearly identical, both begging that she give them good news.
She sighed. She could do that, kind of. She made her way over to them and dropped in the chair adjacent Jones. “The bleeding's under control. The doctor says he's lucid – or as lucid as he can be with the drugs they've got him on.”
Cassandra made a little relieved noise; her hand reached across Ezekiel to squeeze Eve's wrist. Eve laid her freed hand over Cassie's.
“He also said that it's too early to tell just how badly Stone's shoulder was damaged. The bullet apparently hit his clavicle and then got lodged in soft tissue... somewhere. They're gonna stabilize him, then get him into surgery to remove the bullet and take care of the bone fragments. It'll be awhile before we can see him.” That should address most of their questions. Hopefully.
“How long is awhile?” Cassie asked quietly.
“They'll let us check in on him before the surgery, but that's still gonna be some time.” Eve glanced at Jones. “He was bleeding pretty badly. They can't go in until he's strong enough to handle it.” Jones flinched; Eve bumped her shoulder against his.
“Okay.” Cassie looked down, sniffled a bit, and drew a deep breath. “That's fine. I can wait.”
Eve patted her hand, then extricated hers to turn her full attention onto Jones. The man had been quiet – far quieter than usual, that was certain, but she couldn't blame him for it. To see a friend fall in such a way... Eve had to banish those memories – and hers were all in combat situations, where she'd steeled herself to know that possibility. Stone and Jones went to grab food, not go to war. “What happened, Jones?”
He looked up at her, one eyebrow raised, like he couldn't quite believe she'd asked that question. “Stone got shot.”
Patience, she told herself. “I'll need a little more than that if I'm going to track this one down.”
Jones' eyes narrowed. “You're the Guardian, not the avenger.” There was a brittle bitterness to his words that struck Eve right where it hurt.
Eve let her hands curl into fists for a short moment before taking a deep breath and consciously letting Jones' words roll off her back. He was right, in a way. She'd been so focused on simply making sure her charges made it through missions unscathed that she never really stopped to consider any other threats. But that would mean that this wasn't just a random act of violence. Somehow, she didn't think it would be. Not in their line of work.
It was just that Librarians tended toward the magical; if there was something that was going to threaten her charges, it was going to be magical. Not some guy with a gun and a few bullets. Eve ran a hand over her face. “He's still with us,” she pointed out, “and I need to know if this is some old... I don't know. Oil-rigger friend.” Even as she said it, she knew it sounded ridiculous. “They could try again. They could try for one of you.” She looked at Jones, whose gaze was somewhere on the floor. “So, yes, I'm guarding. Now tell me what happened.”
Jones' shoulders fell, hunched forward as she spoke. It was obvious that he took the reprimand to heart. “Okay, fine. There's not much to tell. Stone and I were walking from the car to the restaurant. He stopped because he couldn't remember locking the car. He turned to check. Boom. Shot. Done.”
Eve blinked at him. “That's it?”
“What more could there be?”
“One shot?” Her voice was hard and demanding; that tone she took when she took point in their strategy sessions.
“Yeah?” Jones looked completely confused by the question. “Did you want more?”
Eve leaned forward, elbows on her knees and hands clasped together. “How quickly were the police there?”
Jones shrugged one shoulder. “There must have been a couple units nearby. It was only a few minutes.”
“But nothing between when Stone went down and police arrival?”
“No.” Jones looked like he was hovering between annoyed and confused. “What are you getting at?”
Eve was silent for a long moment, debating whether to even tell them about her suspicions. She finally sighed; they had to know. They could be in danger, too. “One shot's a targeted hit. Several is just someone unhinged.”
Jones was the first to get it – his jaw dropped as he stared at Eve – but Cassie was the first to speak. “What? Eve, what?”
Jones managed one word: “Target?”
Eve stood, suddenly a flurry of activity. “You two are going back to the Library. Now. Cassandra, call Jenkins for a door.”
“From here?” Cassandra pulled her phone out even as she questioned Eve. “We're fifteen minutes away from the Annex.”
“Fifteen minutes in the open,” Eve snapped. Cassandra stilled, dawning horror settling like a mantle over her. “Jenkins, Cassandra. Now.”
She nodded once, eyes wide, and made the call.
Ezekiel stood, clutching the jacket close. The same horror that enveloped Cassandra was heavy in his frame, but his voice was steady and low. “What about Stone?”
“He's alive,” Eve said, dialing a number on her phone from memory. “He's going to stay that way.”
No one would dare contradict that hard edge in her voice.
---------
Alec Hardison was in a good mood. He'd successfully talked Eliot – grouchy, grumpy, surly man that he was – into making lasagna. Not just any lasagna. Eliot Spencer's homemade, labor-intensive, hours of prep Italian-inspired concoction overflowing with meat and cheese and some blend of herbs and spices that Hardison was never, never going to figure out. (Except that he had the grocery list, so he was halfway there.) The only caveat? Hardison had to buy the ingredients. So if there was a spring in his step when he breezed into the apartment? He couldn't be blamed.
Eliot's place – one of them, anyway – wasn't far from the pub itself and it hadn't been much to convince him to put down roots, of a sort, close by. They had their space behind the pub, sure, but all work all the time had left them all a little off-balance. They worked better with some time apart now and again, whether it was a con they were running or a restaurant. That didn't mean, though, that they all three didn't end up at one another's places. The apartment wasn't exactly sparsely furnished, but there wasn't much superfluous to it. Eliot had never been able to get past a life that had him always moving, so even when he did manage to stay in one place for a few years, he just never really got himself much of anything. (Except, as far as Hardison knew, two vehicles, a storage unit full of God knows what, and a flatbed trailer he had parked in storage. He still didn't know what had possessed Eliot to get a trailer, but hey. It had come in handy on a job or two, so he wasn't going to complain.)
He let himself in – they all had keys to each other's places, by mutual agreement, though they hardly needed keys to get into anywhere – juggling the canvas bags slung over his arm. “Don't hit me,” he called – an old joke that hadn't been that funny at first, when Eliot had done just that. With the door. (An accident, the man insisted. Hardison was pretty sure it was anything but.)
Eliot was on the phone when Hardison arrived; he shot him a disgusted “that's not funny” look before his expression settled into something slightly alarming. He seriously looked like he wanted to punch whoever was on the other end of that phone call. Hardison was almost sure he'd find a way. He went over to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room, where Parker was perched on the counter. She tilted her head up to him, smiling as she pecked his cheek. There was something dark in her eyes, a concern that she couldn't quite hide. Hardison tweaked her blond ponytail. “What's going on?”
Parker shrugged one shoulder. “He got a phone call two minutes ago. He hasn't stopped pacing since.”
“Oh, that's bad.” Hardison set the bags down and leaned on the counter to watch Eliot turn on his heel and start back toward the bedroom door opposite the kitchen. “What have you figured out?”
Eliot turned again, and started back toward them. His expression was downright murderous. Hardison raised a brow at him; Eliot waved a hand and made a studious effort to school his features into something a little less... frightening. He asked a single question of the person on the phone: “Why?”
Parker worried her lower lip. “I think it's something about what he doesn't do anymore.”
Eliot was close enough to them to catch that answer. He grimaced, but actually nodded to confirm her suspicions. He spun on his heel and started back toward the bedroom. Halfway there, he snorted and hung up the phone without another word. From the bar, Hardison could see his knuckles white against the black case. “Hey, man, do not throw it at the wall. I don't want to replace your phone again.”
There was half a beat before Eliot pointed at him with the hand still holding the phone. “The last one was not my fault.”
Hardison raised a brow.
“I got thrown off a boat, Hardison.”
“You are hell on electronics. Lost your earpiece that day, too. I'm running out of them.”
Eliot looked like he wanted to chuck the phone at Hardison. Mission accomplished, then. He wasn't focusing on whatever that call had been about and could probably talk about it without breaking something. Considering the last time he'd gotten a call like that, the three of them ended up running all over DC trying to stop a mad scientist, Hardison wasn't looking forward to this conversation.
“What was that about, Eliot?” Parker asked quietly.
Eliot ran a hand through his long hair – an anxious gesture they'd all picked up on within a week of working with the guy – and tossed the phone on the bar as he approached. Forearms on the bar, hands clasped together, he leaned in and sighed. He pushed his thumbs against the bridge of his nose. “There's someone working in Portland. Job went down a couple hours ago, out in the Hollywood District.”
“Okay,” Hardison said, mimicking Eliot's posture on the other side of the bar, on the other side of Parker, who was still perched on the counter. “If it's already gone down, we can't do much there, but maybe we can keep some collateral damage--”
But Eliot was shaking his head. “He was sloppy. Target's still alive.”
Parker bent down to look Eliot in the eye. “So you want us to save the target?”
“Man, this sounds suspiciously like one action-packed afternoon in Washington,” Hardison said.
Eliot winced, tossed his hair away from his eyes as he looked over at Hardison. “Uh, well...”
“Do not say it.”
“There's apparently ties to NATO's counter-terrorism unit.”
“No.”
But Parker's eyes were practically glittering at the information. “Who's the target? Why?”
Eliot looked downright cagey as he hesitated to answer the question. His mouth worked and he raised a hand to gesture a bit – all signs that he didn't like the answer he was about to give them. Hardison steeled himself for some ridiculously horrible news. “That's, uh. That's where I'm having some trouble with this. It ain't makin' sense.”
“Oh, God,” Hardison moaned. “He's Oklahoma-ing. This is bad.”
Eliot bared his teeth at him. Parker tapped Eliot on the shoulder, tilted her head at him. “Target's name is Jacob Stone.” He ignored Parker's gasp and Hardison's surprised little cough. “He's undergoing treatment at Legacy Emmanual. Expected to pull through.”
Hardison stared at him. “I thought your cousin was a surveyor for an oil company in Oklahoma.”
“Yep,” Eliot said, drawing the word out.
“NATO?”
Eliot lifted his hands, palms up in a universal gesture of fuck if I know.
Hardison looked longingly at the bags of groceries. “I'll order a pizza.” He pushed off the bar.
Parker slipped to the floor, briefly leaned against Eliot's shoulder. Eliot bumped her shoulder with his and slowly returned the little smile that she was giving him. “Let's find you someone to punch,” she said, almost too cheerfully.
Eliot shook his head but couldn't help the chuckle that caught in his throat.
--------
Rainfall came with sunset. The rain was heavy, driven by gusting wind. It was the coldest time of year in Portland; in the mountains surrounding the city, the storm was a full blizzard, halting traffic through the passes. It seemed that the city itself ground to a halt, her population huddling in their homes against the lashing rain and wind. Baird sat in what passed for a comfortable chair in a hospital – it wasn't hard plastic but it wasn't exactly luxury either – and listened to the rain beat the window. She'd drawn the shades in the first moments she'd come into the room and turned off the overhead light. The room itself was washed in soft lighting from lamps in opposite corners. One lamp stood next to her chair and Eve shifted to take advantage of the light, manila folder open in her hand.
The police report was coldly impersonal, which seemed at odds with the sight before her: Jacob Stone, oblivious to the world in a hospital bed. She knew that, under the light gown, bandages wrapped around his shoulder tightly. His right arm was secured to his chest, to keep movement to a minimum and Eve winced at that. Stone wasn't exactly helpless left-handed, but she could already imagine the grumbling when he found even making notes during his days-long research sessions difficult. (But she was exceedingly grateful that he would be around to do that grumbling.) He'd been showing some signs here and again of waking from the anesthesia – his surgery had gone as well as could be expected, according to the doctor – but he had yet to actually regain consciousness.
So Eve waited.
Her phone buzzed on the tray table beside the chair; she picked it up with a cursory glance at the screen and her expression fell into a sad little half-smile as she answered. “Hey, Jenkins.” As Jenkins spoke, a nurse entered the room, peering first around the corner as if to check on them first before disturbing. Eve offered the lithe blond woman a nod – she was welcome to come in. Eve kept a weather eye on her even as she kept up her side of the conversation.
“No,” she responded to Jenkins' question. “I don't know anything yet. The police reports aren't exactly forthcoming.” She frowned as the nurse peered into Stone's face; the nurse caught her eye and grinned, then mouthed something about checking for signs of waking.
Eve sighed. “Tomorrow. I'll make arrangements for them to see him then.”
The nurse patted Stone's good hand and wrote something in a small notepad. “He looks good,” she stage-whispered to Eve, who gave her an odd look. “Well, good for someone who just got shot,” the nurse amended. She scratched awkwardly in front of her ear.
“Tell them that I'm sorry,” Eve said to Jenkins. “Even if he does wake up tonight, he's not going to be up to company. Just... reassure them that he's okay?” A pause, then Eve actually smiled. “Yeah, I know that means they'll be with you all night. You'll live.”
Baird looked up to find the nurse looking straight at her. She raised a brow.
The nurse blinked at her, then made a gesture toward the window. “You don't want the shades open? You'll catch morning light.”
Eve's expression went hard. “Shades stay down.”
The nurse nodded once. “Okay, gotcha. Shades stay down.”
Jenkins demanded attention on the phone. “Yeah, I'll call you first thing in the morning. And, yes. If anything changes, I'll call you right away. Yes, I know it's not you asking. Good night, Jenkins.” Eve laid the phone down on the table with a sigh and looked at the nurse. “It's not time for the meds.”
The nurse shook her head. “I just wanted to check in. I was walking by and saw you in here.”
The corner of Eve's mouth lifted up. “Thanks. I'll let you know if we need anything.” She motioned to Stone. “He's not going anywhere and I've got reading to do.”
“Gotcha,” the nurse said, threw a jaunty salute, and promptly exited the room.
Eve stared after her, then shook her head, amused by the nurse's odd chirpiness. She sighed heavily and set the file aside, next to the phone. There was nothing new there and wouldn't be until the crime lab ran through the scenes – where Jacob had fallen and where they'd found the shooter's perch. So she turned her attention to Stone. Carefully – because she was on his right side – she leaned forward and settled her hand on his forearm, just underneath his elbow.
The doctor who spearheaded the surgery had told her that some permanent damage was likely in the shoulder; it was the soft tissue injury, caused by both the bullet and the bone fragments after it had nicked his clavicle. He'd been optimistic, though, already speaking of therapy and regaining near-full range of motion. That had to be enough to Eve, who could only think of ways to compensate for the weaker shoulder during missions. (She was under no delusion that Jacob would take it easy, or stay behind when Ezekiel and Cassandra went off on missions. More often than not, Stone ended up acting as a sort of back-up Guardian when he wasn't completely distracted by something in his field.) Baird gingerly squeezed his forearm – then stood and leaned over Stone when she noticed his fingers moving.
His eyes were at half-mast. That had happened once or twice before but this was the first time he'd also been moving. There was no recognition in his eyes, but the slow blinking, along with the movement of his hand, was enough to convince Eve that he was coming out of the anesthesia. “Stone?” she said softly.
After a moment, his eyes flicked toward her. It took another couple of slow blinks before awareness dawned in his gaze. His brow furrowed, lips parted, closed. Tried again. On the third try, he managed a rasping, “hi.”
Eve couldn't help the smile – or the way her eyes burned a bit – as she answered. “Hi.”
Jacob stared at her for a long moment and she wondered if she'd lost him to the anesthesia again before he managed another word. “Cold.”
She lightly touched his forearm again and reached for the blanket folded up at the foot of the bed. “Gotcha,” she said and laid it over him, carefully making sure that the blanket didn't settle heavily on his shoulder.
He floundered under the blanket for a moment, left hand trying and failing to make an appearance. Eve leaned over him and extricated his arm for him. He promptly held up his arm, forearm toward her, hand loosely held in a fist, and she gave a startled little laugh. She did the same and lightly bumped her forearm against his. “Hi,” she said again. “Good to see you.”
“Yeah,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. There was more awareness in his gaze, but the dark circles under his eyes and the general pallor of his skin certainly didn't help him. His hair was a mess, sticking up all over the place and Eve had to suppress a motherly urge to smooth it down for him.
She did take his hand though, holding it between both of hers for a moment before settling it on the blankets beside him. “How are you feeling?” Maybe it was a stupid question, but it got a conversation started and she could start to gauge how lucid he actually was.
He seemed to consider that for a moment, eyes flicking toward his bandaged shoulder. “Good drugs,” he finally said.
“Yeah, they have those in a hospital.” Eve turned away for a moment to pull the chair a little closer. “You remember anything?”
His brow furrowed, but he lifted his left hand from the bed, thumb up and first two fingers straight, pantomiming a gun. “Boom.” His expression grew troubled, which Baird completely understood. Any assault was a traumatic experience. A blind gunshot while walking down the sidewalk? Definitely so. “Jones?”
“Is fine. He rode with you to the ER.”
Stone frowned. “Don't remember that.”
“Did you think you would?” she asked him. After a considering moment, he shook his head. “That's what I thought,” Baird continued. “Do you feel up to answering any questions or should it wait until morning?”
Stone gave her a dubious look. “Can try?”
She chuckled. “It can wait until morning. You know, when you can communicate in full sentences. For a guy who speaks nine languages, you're falling flat.”
He huffed at her.
Baird allowed herself to smile at him for another moment before she sobered. She leaned over him and took his left hand. “Rest easy, okay? I'm not leaving this room tonight.”
Stone glanced at her hand on his. “Okay.”
“After tonight,” she said, voice hard-edged with iron, “I'm going to find the bastard who did this.”
“Know you will,” Jacob muttered. “Save one for me.”
Eve gave in to the temptation to smooth his hair down. “You got it, Stone.” She dropped back into her chair. “Get some rest. We'll pick this up in the morning.”
The room fell into silence.
Around the corner, just outside the door, a nurse pressed her lips together, then silently made her way down the corridor. “Did you get that?” she quietly asked of no one.
Every word, said Hardison in her ear. C'mon home. We got work to do.
----------
“Doctor Jacob Stone.” Hardison turned a laptop around so that Parker and Eliot, sitting across a table from him, could see it. Judging by the way Eliot tilted his head and squinted through his glasses, that was new information. “He's got as many aliases as degrees, but they don't go that deep. Once I pulled together all of it, I found a million scholarly articles published under pseudonyms and just a handful recently featuring his actual name in the byline.”
Eliot reached up and scratched under his temple with one finger while he absorbed that. Parker leaned on his shoulder. “So he's smart,” she said.
“As hell.” Hardison huffed. “I tried to read one of 'em and went cross-eyed.” His gaze landed on Eliot. “So, the one time you actually did say something about family, you mentioned oil rigs and surveying, not art and literature.”
“Yeah, 'cause I knew about the oil rigs.” Eliot's eyebrow actually twitched – a sure sign that Hardison probably needed to move on.
So he did. “About three years ago, Stone was involved in a bar brawl in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma. Witnesses say there were ninjas.” Hardison leaned over and hit a button on the keyboard. (They had elected to simply sit around a table at the pub with a laptop, given it was four in the morning.) A grainy picture of a statuesque blonde woman – a still from a CCTV camera – popped up on screen. “Probably not ninjas – it's Oklahoma – but this woman did show up to save his ass when someone pulled a sword on him.”
Hardison looked up to find Parker giving him that smile that meant she didn't believe anything he was laying down and Eliot's head tilted in the opposite direction it had been in two seconds ago. “Yes, a sword,” he said. “That is Colonel Eve Baird, attached to NATO's counter-terrorism unit. Stone disappeared that night, but showed up a couple weeks later to clear out. Far as I can tell, he settled here in Portland, but he's been all over the world and he's usually glued to Baird's side. There's a couple others he's traveled with and, uh.” Hardison reached over the laptop screen again to hit another sequence of keys. “That's where it gets interesting.”
“That's where it gets interesting?”
“He speaks,” Hardison quipped, then shrugged in the face of Eliot's snarl. There was another still from a security camera. A petite woman was facing the camera, a man walked beside her, head down. “This guy's actually pretty good at avoiding cameras. The girl's nobody. Cassandra Cillian, former janitor at a hospital in New York. Nothing special, unless you count the tumor recently removed from her head. The guy, though. He's a ghost. I got nothing but a million aliases that go round and round. He's good. But I'm better and I'll find him.” A pause. “Eventually.”
“So, long story short,” Eliot said, “Baird likely put together a team that, for some reason, includes a girl with a tumor, a ghost, and a guy who-- what is he?”
“Art historian, mostly.” Hardison pulled up another window. “He's good, too. But on top of that, Baird apparently wasn't exaggerating last night when she mentioned him speaking nine languages. If anything, she sold him short. This is the guy major museums around the world call when they find something new. He's done a few appraisals for private collections. In fact, we came about five minutes from running into him once. Remember Oliver Thompson?”
“The art appraiser who called out that fake that we wanted to not be fake?” Parker asked. “I was going to drop him down an elevator shaft for ruining that one.”
“Yeah, him. That's Stone. We never saw the guy; he left the estate before we got there, but he was the reason we had to come up with something new on-site. He called our fake.”
“Okay, that's... all well and good,” Eliot said, waving a hand at the screen. “But we're looking for why someone would want to shoot him and I'm betting on NATO.”
“I'm still digging through a few things,” Hardison said. “I'm gonna work the art angle for now. Something's bugging me there. Stone was in Switzerland without his NATO escort last week. Any other trip, he's never been alone.”
Parker tapped her lower lip. “I'll keep on the hospital. Make sure there's no more shooting.”
Eliot looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I'm gonna make a few phone calls. I want to check on Baird.”
“Vance?”
He looked at Hardison and nodded. It looked like he was barely holding back a wince. “One of 'em, yeah.”
“I don't get it, man.” Hardison turned the laptop back toward him. “Obviously, Stone didn't want anyone knowing he's, you know, smart. Not until recently. That don't make no sense.”
“No,” Eliot said, “that's the only part that actually makes sense. Family ain't easy.”
Hardison stared at him a long moment. “Still don't make sense.”
The look he garnered for that one would have sent most men running. Hardison had more time to grow accustomed to Eliot's bluster – in other words, he knew when it was real and when he should duck. (This one was almost real. Hardison made a note to move fast, just in case.) “Jacob's dad – my uncle – lost it after his wife died. That was just about when I joined up. That funeral wasn't pretty.” Eliot sighed. A troubled expression crossed his features; Hardison got the feeling there was a lot more to this story than an unpretty funeral. “Pretty sure Jacob was just tryin' to keep his dad from flying apart and got mired in the family business.”
“Well,” Hardison said, “he's out of it. We just don't know what he's into now.”
Parker tapped the table between them all. “Do we want to know?”
Both men looked at her, brows raised.
“I mean,” she said, “we don't exactly know what kind of work he's doing. Just because it's NATO doesn't mean it's not hinky,”
Eliot closed his eyes briefly while Hardison sighed heavily. “Let's just keep him alive,” Eliot said, voice barely above a gravelly rasp. “We'll figure out the rest later.”
Parker deliberately slid her fingers over Eliot's knuckles, where his hand rested on the table. “I hope he's one of the good guys,” she said and leaned over to kiss his cheek.
------------
Stone woke to humming.
Actually, no. That wasn't exactly true. He woke up because the dull ache in his shoulder gradually grew sharper and sharper until it even cut through his sleep; after he was awake enough to be semi-coherent, he heard the humming. He let the humming go and grunted, lifting his left hand and instinctively going to probe at his right shoulder.
“Oh, no, you don't.” The mattress shifted near his knees and a slender hand caught his wrist. “You probably shouldn't go poking at that, Jacob.”
Why shouldn't he poke at his own shoulder-- oh. Oh. Memory flooded back and wasn't that a bitch? He opened one eye, vision a little hazy. Cassandra looked back at him, her smile a bit tremulous. “Careful,” she said. “There's a port in your left arm. Don't dislodge it. It's awful when that happens.” She closed her hands around his. “No IV though, so you lucked out. The port's just for painkillers now.”
He blinked at her, hoping to God he'd actually managed to follow everything. His answer was a little slow. “Painkillers are good.” Jesus, was that a full sentence? He was getting better at this.
“Yeah, you're about due.” Cassandra shifted, her hip bumping the side of his knee. He thought about moving over a bit for her, but couldn't manage to make himself move. The thought counted, at least. She frowned at him and his brow furrowed as she reached for his face. Her fingertips traced the lines around his narrowed eyes. “Definitely due for those painkillers. You were all relaxed while you were sleeping and now not so much.” She leaned forward to press the call button. “We'll just get that taken care of.”
Oh, wow, that was a lot of talking. Jacob wasn't sure that he could keep up. He looked about the room, eyeing the empty chair that Baird had occupied during the night. “Baird and Jones?”
“He's helping her run some computer thingies looking for...” Cassandra waved her hand, frowning uncomfortably. “You know. The whole thing. What with the thing and you know. People involved and all that.”
Jacob twisted his hand in hers, to squeeze her fingers.
She offered him a smile, but her voice shook when she spoke. “They said they'd talk about when you can get out of here this evening, depending on how you're doing on the meds they're giving you. They didn't want you to, you know, go home if they can't get the pain under control.” She sniffled and ran a thumb across her cheek, still with that tremulous smile. “Not that you're going home. You're coming to the Library with us and we'll take of things. Of you. It'll be fine. Baird's on a mission and you know how she gets. No one is going to stand in her way. So we just have to manage the pain--” Her voice finally broke.
Jacob was really trying not to just stare at her, because it took him far too long to realize that she kept hovering over the fact that he was in pain. “Cassie--”
She ignored him. “Manage the pain,” she tried again. “I mean, of course there's some pain to be managed, right? A bullet and surgery and your clavicle is all,” here she waved the fingers of her free hand, “in pieces.”
He didn't need that reminder, really. “Cassie.” He pulled his hand down to his chest, still holding onto hers.
“What?” she asked, wide-eyed.
He gave her a crooked little grin, probably marred by lines of pain in his face. “Hi.”
She pressed her lips together, visibly regaining control over her rambling. “Good morning.”
A nurse entered the room and, when Jacob's gaze flickered to the doorway, he noticed the uniformed officer right outside his door. With a sigh, he let his eyes close as Cassandra and the nurse held a whispered conversation about his medication. It was only when, a few minutes later, Cassandra let go of his hand and a nurse manhandled his arm into compliance that he opened his eyes to watch the syringe of painkillers released into the port. Cassandra quietly thanked the nurse, then turned back to Jacob as they were left alone again.
Alone but for the police presence just outside. That unsettled Jacob as much as it reassured him. (He wished it was Baird.)
“That should help,” Cassandra said quietly.
Jacob took several deep breaths, letting the medication begin to work its magic before focusing on his companion. “Yeah.”
“Baird wanted me to ask you a couple questions, if you're up for it.” Cassandra was frowning. “We're all kind of stymied. This isn't really in our usual circle of threats, you know?”
“Shoot,” he said.
Cassandra flinched.
So did he, to be perfectly honest. “Or don't do that.”
She managed a quiet little smile. “I feel like one of those cops in the movies. Baird gave me questions that I swear I've heard on TV before.”
There was a long enough pause that Stone ended up speaking. “Don't make me guess 'em. Answering 'em is gonna be hard enough.”
“Oh, right.” Cassandra patted his hand. “Sorry. First question: did you notice anything unusual in the hours leading up to the--” she faltered, “--the, uhm, incident?”
Stone really did try to keep his expression neutral but the 'incident' was still far too fresh – and far too traumatic, unfortunately. He tensed, which was a mistake even with the medication that he'd recently been given; sharp pain radiated from his shoulder and his vision went white for a moment.
When he regained some sense of equilibrium, Cassandra was holding his hand. She'd scooted up the bed a bit, so as to rest his hand between hers against her thigh. “Does it need to wait?” she asked softly when she saw him looking at her.
His voice was rough. “No. Get this over with.”
“Okay. So.” Her thumbs ran over his knuckles and it struck him that she was almost as uncomfortable with this as he was. “Weird things?”
“Jones only insulted me twice on the drive out.”
Cassie huffed a laugh. “I'll give you that. That is strange.” Her thumbs stopped moving. “You didn't notice anything?”
“No. I'm sorry, Cassie. I just didn't.” He was started to slur a bit, words running into each other.
“Don't be sorry,” she said. “I told Baird that I would ask but she seems to think that if you'd noticed something off, you would have known to duck.”
Jacob's tight features softened; he wasn't quite smiling but there was something almost proud in it, as if he took some strength from being trusted to be observant. “What's the next question?”
“Not so much a question.” Her thumbs had resumed rubbing his knuckles. As much as he never wanted her to stop, it was oddly relaxing to the point that he felt as if he might actually fall asleep on her. “We're going to retrace your steps together through the last week or so.”
His brow furrowed. “Was with you guys for most of it. Usual haunts. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Vaguely, he wondered if he could get Cassie to tell him what drugs they had actually given him, because he was quite suddenly on the verge of exhaustion. Again.
“Except for those two days in, uh...” Cassandra bit her lip. “Switzerland?”
He nodded. “Private appraisal.”
“Oh, right.” Cassandra nodded, a sparkle in her eye. “The rich people jobs.”
“Pays the bills.”
Her half-teasing expression relaxed into a full smile. “I don't blame you, though. Exotic locations, giant manors, amazing art collections. I'd be all over it.” But then her smile dropped and her features grew troubled. “Jacob? Didn't you tell me that he got really mad at you?”
“Rich people,” Jacob slurred, unable to keep his eyes open, “tryin' to get richer don't like it when you tell them that the piece they're tryin' to sell is a fake.” He blinked slowly, for a moment dumbfounded by the growing horror in her face, before what he'd said caught up with him. “Huh.”
Cassandra's grip on his hand tightened. “How mad was he?”
He blinked slowly at her. He knew that he should answer that question, but there was a disconcerting lack of mental acuity here. It felt like nothing was quite connecting; his thoughts couldn't make it to his mouth – a truly uncomfortable feeling for a man who prided himself on just the opposite. “Drugs,” he told Cassandra quite seriously.
She softened, brow furrowing and settled somewhere between indulgence and concern. “Yes, I can tell.” She reached up, tapped his cheek when he started to drift. “Jacob Stone, focus. One more thing, okay? Look at me.”
He did. It took most of his concentration.
“Who was this guy?”
The name hovered just out of Jacob's recollection. But he knew where he could find it. “Appointments. In my computer.”
Her smile was brittle, but it was just for him, so he'd take it. “Okay, that works.” She let her hand rest on his cheek for a moment longer before pulling away. “Go back to sleep.”
There was no way in hell that he could argue that one. Sleep, it was.