What Else Would You Have Me Be?
Chapter 8
What's black, white, and red all over?
Give up?
Me.
Alec
didn't want to look down, didn't want to see, but as he stared around,
trying to find something else to focus on, he found nothing that made
sense. A flurry of movement, arms tugging at him, people shouting.
Eliot, lost behind bodies, no way to tell if Donovan had managed to take
him out as well and it was all buried under the pain of moving, of not moving and just trying to breathe.
He
couldn't even tell which of the guards was trying to apply pressure to
the wound- he thought it was McTeague, calling for a medic, but in
between the shouts he thought he was beginning to hear the sounds of
fighting, of Eliot's he started it, loud in his year, and a you gotta let me- I've was a medic in the army.
Alec
remembered, vaguely, a long time ago, when a doctor he hadn't known was
Eliot had nearly stabbed a hole in his throat. He'd been lying on a
much nicer floor than this.
Then Eliot was there, in his ear
and in his face, telling him to stay calm, not panic, only it was a
little too late for that, now, wasn't it, and did he really know what he
was doing? And where was the doctor?
Shit, there wasn't one, not until later.
"Nurses
are on their way, gonna get you up to the infirmary. Just need to slow
down, stay calm." Eliot was shoving him back to the ground, pressing
his hand over the wound and making it scream. "Sorry, I know it
hurts, man, but the harder you breathe, the more you'll bleed. You're
fine, okay? I've seen worse, just focus on anything but what you're
feeling right now, concentrate on… my voice, you got that?"
Alec
took a shuddering breath and decided to focus on the fact that this was
probably the first time he'd ever heard Eliot babbling.
"Name's
Gremminger, we met this morning. What's your name again?" Eliot asked,
as much to warn him to stay in character as anything else.
"Aaron," he managed, after thinking about it for a moment. "Washington."
"Right,
nice to meet you again. Medics are on their way," he promised, but the
worried look he shot towards the building wasn't encouraging. "You
hurt anywhere else?"
"No."
"Okay," Eliot cocked his head towards the guard- Sanchez, Hardison remembered, from over in Tent City.
"You see who did this to you?"
"No.
Came from the side, I was distracted. Couldn't-" Alec broke off. He
hadn't seen anything, he'd thought the threat had been in front of him, not sneaking up from the side, and he'd barely talked to anyone else, there wasn't any reason-
-Donovan
had an accomplice. Stupid, not to think about it before now, he had to
warn Eliot but there were more people here, now, the nurse from the
infirmary, and a few others, pushing Eliot aside to take over, shoving
him onto a field gurney, forcing him to lay down as it began to sway
when they stood.
They were moving fast, and he lifted his head, trying to see Eliot, but couldn't make him out.
He dropped his head back, hand again on the wound- fuck, he could still feel it bleeding- and just tried to keep breathing.
---
Eliot
was only dimly aware of Nate's voice in his ear, but couldn't make his
mouth move to answer. Not that he was given much of a chance, between
the guards grabbing him again and dragging him forcefully after
Hardison. Once they were inside, though, they took a hard left, down
through the block and down the stairs.
It wasn't like he hadn't
known this was coming. But he hadn't thought he'd be going down there
with Hardison's blood on his hands.
---
"Don't care if
you didn't start it," Miller said, before Eliot had even had a chance to
argue, "but you're here anyway for the next 24 at least. After that,
it depends on what we find on the cameras, so don't bother bitching, and
strip down."
Eliot nodded, feeling numb, and did as he was told, careful not to jostle the earpiece as he pulled the shirt over his head.
He
didn't have enough surprise left over to notice that, after wiping his
bloody hands on the uniform and handing it over, Miller made no move to
get him a fresh change of clothes.
A few minutes later, Miller
was shutting the door- heavy steel, with only a window and a tray slot-
and Eliot was alone in his own headspace for the first time in what felt
like years.
It didn't last long. He'd just eased himself
down against the far wall when he realized that he was still on comms,
that everyone was talking at once. He let the noise wash over him as he
took in the fixtures- a low wattage bulb, too high to reach, and a
bucket in the corner that didn't look to have been cleaned properly
since the last guy was in here. There was a drain in the middle of the
floor, and stains on the walls that he didn't want to contemplate.
"Damn it, Eliot! What the fuck happened?" The words sounded twice as harsh coming from Sophie's panicked voice.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to see anything, any more. Not even his own hands, clenched on his knees.
"Hardison
got stabbed during the fight. Donovan's got an accomplice, I think.
I'm in the SHU, Hardison's up in the infirmary, and that's all I know."
Nobody replied, and as far as Eliot was concerned, they were done
talking. Before anyone could prove otherwise, he dug out his earpiece-
his hands were starting to shake, now that the adrenaline was wearing
off- and tossed it into the corner.
---
Alec was
conscious for most of the ride over, but things got choppy. Flashes
here and there, the ambulance ceiling, a corridor, bright lights, people
leaning over him. Nate and Sophie's voices out in the hallway, there
for a minute and gone, maybe imagined. He tried reaching up to his ear,
but his hand was clumsy, already being maneuvered down again by one of
the nurses. He hadn't even realized his earbud had fallen out.
They
were here, it meant they knew what was going on, and it either meant
that Eliot was okay, or that there wasn't anything they could do for
him, but it was probably the former.
Alec closed his eyes, let
the doctor believe he was listening to his repeated orders to try and
relax. He dropped out of it again a few moments later, dimly aware that
he still hurt, badly.
---
This is insane.
Over
the past year, there'd been three separate occasions in which Eliot
could have killed Moreau, but he'd held back. Told himself he wasn't that man anymore. He'd promised himself that he'd tell the team, give them a head start on taking him down.
But he'd kept quiet. He'd known what telling everyone would've entailed. They would've asked what else he knew, and how he'd learned it. They would've wanted to know everything.
The first time he nearly got Hardison killed, they asked, but they hadn't pressed.
Maybe they should've. Maybe he should've just told Parker what she'd wanted to know. Explained exactly
the levels he'd stooped to and the thousand reasons they shouldn't have
trusted him in the first place. Maybe Hardison wouldn't have gotten
killed twice in as many months.
You don't know that he's dead.
He
stared at the earpiece. It would be so easy to find out. The team was
probably on it. They'd have information, they'd know. But Eliot
wasn't stupid. He'd gotten Hardison hurt. Again. He wasn't their
friend right now.
The only way to know that they were still on
the same channel, that anyone was still even listening, would be to put
the damned thing back in and hope. And if he was going to go that far,
he'd have to be ready to fucking speak, and whatever he said?
If this was going to be the last communiqué, it needed to be worth
hearing, something they could use. If he couldn't be their friend any
more, he could at least be their ally.
Eliot closed his eyes. There wasn't anything useful down here. He needed to think.
In
the yard, he'd been focused on Donovan, waiting for him to make his
move. He'd been keeping an eye on the periphery, but not as much as he
would've been if he hadn't memorized it so well. Everything had looked
exactly like it always did, the clusters of inmates, the guards talking
through the fence, the pickup game getting set up in the middle of the
yard.
It hadn't gotten confusing until Donovan attacked, and his attack had been off,
sloppy. Too much motion, too little effect. Even if he'd managed to
take Eliot out, there would've been no way he would've gotten away with
it. And the guy was good, the planning that had gone into it was too
strong to be the lead-in for such a weak end game.
And of course he'd had an accomplice. Only. No. Wait. Hang on.
Hardison was the one who'd gotten hit. Not Eliot.
He picked up the earpiece.
---
"Nate?"
"Damn it, Eliot," Nate answered, exasperated, but there. "Where have you been?"
"Absolutely nowhere. What's going on? How's Hardison?"
"He's
in surgery. They had to transfer him over to Maryvale Hospital, the
jail's clinic is too understaffed and under-stocked to, ah… Anyway,
they're going to be at it for a few more hours."
"Do you- I didn't- " Eliot broke off, took a breath and started again. "Did they say what happened?"
"Yeah, he, ah. The knife hit a renal artery, and apart from the blood loss, they're worried about his kidney."
Fuck. "Is he stable?" He felt his heart ricochet off his ribcage in the silence that answered.
"They're
working on it," Nate eventually admitted, but then his voice hardened.
"Right now, we've got to talk. I need some answers. Parker? Sophie?"
Neither of them said anything, but Eliot could hear two earpieces
being removed and a little less noise on the line.
"Nate, I-"
"What the fuck happened?"
"Donovan made his move in the yard. I was fighting him when someone in the crowd went for Hardison."
"Any idea who the accomplice was?"
"Yeah.
It was Donovan." When Nate didn't respond, Eliot continued. "It
didn't make any sense. He got himself thrown in here on charges that
wouldn't stick more than a few days."
"Right, so he could get out when the job was done. Same as Hardison."
"Exactly.
So why throw all that away for a blitz attack in broad daylight, with
so many witnesses, just to take someone out who isn't your target?"
"Oh," Nate said.
"Donovan was a distraction. He was the accomplice, I was the collateral, and Hardison was the target."
"And you don't know who it was, or why they did it."
"No idea. I'm sorry."
He wasn't expecting Nate to answer right away.
"Ah,
okay," Nate began. "I'll be there Sunday, and I'll see if I can get
down to see you then, but. Look. I'll phone the girls in a minute, get
them back on comms, but there's something I need to know, first.
Before it went down. Did you have any idea that Hardison was at risk?"
"No,"
Eliot sighed. "And I should've thought of it, I mean, with all that
set-up, they could've made it a lot harder for anyone to figure Donovan
out, but they didn't. I just didn't see it. I'm sorry."
"We focused on Donovan because they wanted us focused on Donovan," Nate summarized, but Eliot knew better than to think that they were done talking.
"Nate.
Before. Back at the pool, Hardison nearly drowned because-" He hadn't
made it to the apology, yet, when Nate cut him off.
"Eliot, I
know you wouldn't have let it come to that. You would've broken cover
first, done what you had to. Same as you did in the warehouse."
The warehouse. It was becoming a euphemism.
"Yeah.
About that," Eliot leaned his head against the concrete wall, closed
his eyes, saw the muzzle flash and the feeling of slick concrete sliding
under his knees, the gunfire impossibly loud, the gun's weight too
easily remembered in his hands. "The warehouse. What I did. I'm why
Hardison's quitting the team, aren't I?"
"From what he said, he
knows that it burned down, and that you and I aren't telling him
everything. So I'm as much to blame on that front as you are, but..."
"Alright."
Eliot sighed, yanking at his hair. "Look. When he comes out of it,
you can tell him. I know what I said, before, but. There's no reason
the team has to lose him just because you're covering for me. You got
that?"
And this was where Nate was supposed to say something along the lines of don't worry about it. I've got a plan. We'll figure it out. Instead, there was a brief pause. "You sure?"
It
wasn't the first lie he'd ever told, but after that, honesty was
suddenly easier. "Yeah. And tell him I'm sorry I didn't have his
back."
"Soon as he's up for it, I'll let him know."
---
If
another medical professional saw fit to waste his time telling him that
he was going to be fine, Alec was going to scream. He just wanted them
gone already, but finally, it looked like they were satisfied
that he fully understood the call button and the bed controls and the
fact that he was going to be in here for a while, and asked him what
he'd been waiting to hear.
"Are you feeling up to a few visitors?"
"God, yes."
---
Sophie was clearly still worried, and Nate wasn't looking thrilled to be here or anything, but more importantly, he looked furious.
It was more of a relief than Alec would've thought, and it was the
perfect excuse to cut Sophie's worrying off, derail it into something
useful.
Nate was one step ahead of him, as usual. "Did you see who stabbed you?"
Alec shook his head. "Distracted. Eliot. He okay? Lost my comm."
"He's fine, they've got him in isolation right now, but he's got a new theory."
"Yeah?"
"Eliot was never the target. Too much setup for such obvious collateral damage."
"Crap. What did we miss?"
"I
have no idea. Eliot's in isolation and you're out of play, so it's
going to be Sophie and I spreading the word that's our main in, for now,
at least for the next few days."
"Few days?"
"Soon as you're up to it, I'm going to need you online."
"You're going to have to get a computer past Nurse Ratched first."
Sophie
raised a mildly affronted eyebrow, as if insulted by the meager
challenge, but then she grinned. "I think we'll manage." It was
surprising, how much better that made Alec feel. Which Nate had to go
and spoil not thirty seconds later.
"Ah, yeah. Sophie? You mind giving us the room, just for a minute?"
Sophie
nodded. She'd clearly known this was coming, at least. As for Alec,
he could feel the coil of unease winding up through the painkillers.
"Look,
ah. I wasn't entirely open with you before. You wanted to know what
happened back at the warehouse." Nate sighed, hands in his pockets,
rocking on his heels as he studied Alec. "We'd gone there looking for
the auction, but we found our Italian friend instead. That much you
knew." Alec nodded, still holding his breath. "Thing is, she wasn't
the only one there. There were about fifteen guys, all armed, and all
prepared. It was a trap. They'd gone back around us and set up a kill
box, and the only way out of there was." Nate winced, not wanting to
say what he was obviously thinking. "He didn't want to do it. But he
knew it was the only way out of there. One of them had gotten too
close, Eliot managed to disarm him, and then, well. He did his job.
They fired first, if it counts for anything. He did what he did to get
us out alive."
Alec stared at the ceiling. It was surprisingly
close to what he'd been thinking, but Nate's description of it, well.
It was a different perspective, and he didn't even know where to begin.
"I don't get it," he said, instead, because it was a lot easier than
focusing on the fact that Eliot had killed so many people. "Why didn't
you tell me before?"
"Eliot. He didn't want anyone to know, and I
haven't asked, or anything, but all that, with Moreau, was already
sending him for a loop."
He remembered the park, the way his
toes squished wetly inside his shoes as Eliot tried to justify what he'd
done, and then tried to explain away his history with Moreau.
He remembered not buying it, mostly. But he'd almost forgotten about
Eliot's face a few moments later, the manic look in his eyes. "Don 't ask me that, Parker." It had almost sounded like begging. "If you ask, I'll have to tell you." And despite what Alec had been thinking at the time, Sophie could lie that well, but Eliot? Maybe. Maybe not.
"So,
yeah," Nate finished. "I guess what I'm saying is, do what you've got
to, but." He shrugged, glancing up at the noise of footsteps passing by
in the hall and looking anywhere but at Alec. "Anyhow. Now you know."
Alec closed his eyes. He didn't want to make any promises. "I'll think about it."
"One
other thing," Nate said, from over by the door. "Whatever you decide,
go easy on him. He knows he fucked up again," he gestured around the
room. "You know. All this. He told me to tell you he's sorry. For what it's worth."
"He's
not the one who stabbed me," Alec opened his eyes again, after a
moment, when Nate didn't respond. He was just in time to see a flash of
relieved recognition flit across Nate's face, though, like he'd caught
on to something nobody else could see, yet.
After Nate left, Alec wondered about that for a very long time.
---
He
thought about Hardison, lying in an emergency room bed, hopefully still
breathing. They would've gotten the bleeding under control by now,
right? Parker would be there waiting, red-eyed, nervous and about to
explode, making herself small in a bedside chair, too freaked to
actually approach the bed. Nate, grey-faced and sweating, twitching at
the sound of the monitors, jumping at the sounds of the nurses in the
hall. Sophie would be holding it together for all of them.
He thought about how easily he'd been mislead, distracted, and he thought about the three-strike rule.
Eliot
had a long time to think, locked down in here. The walls were blank,
the room was dark, and there wasn't much by way of distraction beyond
the one meal that had been slipped through the slot.
Which was
probably why he startled back to full awareness only a few hours later,
hearing the tray slot open. The guard, Miller by the sounds of it, was
speaking through the door. "Got something for you, Gremminger," just as
the black and white stripes of the uniform were shoved through the
slot, tumbling to the floor. They were followed by a new change of the
horrid pink underwear a second later. When he picked them up to get
dressed again, a slip of paper fell out.
One line. Block print. Probably Donovan's.
Your
friend didn't have to die. But bad things happen to people who screw
over law-abiding citizens. Consider the clothes a consolation prize,
and the last kindness you're likely to see for a while.
Frozen, still crouched over the clothes, he stared at the note.
No. He would've heard. They would've said something if Hardison-
But
they hadn't been on comms for a while, now. Something could've
happened. A false start in the operating room. Infection setting in.
Two weeks in the hospital suddenly becoming a few days in the morgue
while dispassionate staff decided what to do with the body.
Sophie
would be the one, probably, to call Hardison's family. Parker would be
off the grid entirely, Nate in the bottom of a bottle somewhere. Maybe
things had fallen apart even more than he'd suspected, maybe they were
shutting him out completely. Deliberately.
"Hey, guys?" No response, and he tried to tell himself he hadn't been expecting one. "Guys?" It still fucking stung.
He
dressed himself, needing the distraction, and began to pace. He needed
to get the hell out of here, needed to find out what was going on. He
wanted to get out, into Hardison's recovery room, just to see for
himself, just in case there was a chance-
He needed to kill
Donovan- he'd slipped this far already, no sense pretending any more,
and he'd get to it the moment Donovan had told him everything, made
himself disposable. He needed to do something.
You've already done enough already.
"Anyone there?"
Still no response.