Chapter Text
The first time Eliot Spencer opened his eyes after what felt like the longest sleep in his life, he entertained the thought that he had died.
His whole body was numb and he could only see through a sliver between his lid and lashes. And all he saw was a blurry blonde woman reading a book in a chair. She looked so beautiful, so serene – he figured she had to be an angel, and he had to be dead.
He closed his eyes, somewhat satisfied that he ended up in heaven – though he was going to protest that with whoever was in charge because they definitely had made a mistake.
The second time he opened his eyes, he kind of wished he was dead. His body had started to seep through pain – like the numbness from before had just been sedation. He also didn’t see the blonde angel, but his army buddy Dr Paul Orozco.
“Hola amigo,” he said and Eliot had to blink a few times. Dr Paul looked rough – lines on his face, gray in his hair. “You gave us all quite the scare.”
“Paul?” Eliot said, testing his voice, which was as gravely as it could be. “What—” He moved and groaned.
“Easy,” Dr Paul said soothingly. “You took quite the beating.”
Did he? Eliot didn’t remember – and now that he thought about it he didn’t remember much at all. What was the last thing he remembered about Paul?
“I thought you were off with Kurlander?”
“Kurlander?” Dr Paul frowned, leafing through patient files on the clipboard he was holding. Now that he was waking up, Eliot realized that Dr Paul was wearing full doctor gear – he never had seen him like that. Then Dr Paul asked, “Eliot, what’s the last thing you remember?”
He wanted to roll his eyes – he had just thought how he couldn’t remember a thing from before he woke up. Trying again all he remembered was some kind of hangar – and a statue of a little naked guy. And some blonde dude beating the shit out of him – wait? Did he lose? No – he wouldn’t.
“Eliot?” Dr Paul pried. “What year is it?”
Blinking, Eliot just said the first thing that popped in his mind.
“2008?”
The third time he woke up, he was surrounded by Sophie, Hardison and Parker – with no sign of the blonde angel.
He had let out a deep sigh of relief that they all seemed safe and unharmed – he really must have cocked up after his fight with the blonde dude for him to wake up in a hospital bed – and was glad they finished the job without him.
But something nagged him – they all looked… older.
“Where’s Nate?” he asked, and Sophie’s breath hitched.
“Eliot…” Parker said softly – and with feelings. Parker showed feelings? It had to be bad for that to happen, and he looked at Sophie with wide eyes.
“I lost – we lost Nate?”
Dread spread through his veins. Mission failed – abort abort abort.
“Oh Eliot,” Sophie murmured and to Eliot’s surprise both Parker and Hardison took each of his hands on either side of the bed. “We lost Nate a long time ago.”
Eliot freed his hands, noticing the hurt on his team mates’ faces – which again was weird. They had barely been working together for a few months now.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “Like metaphorically to alcohol?” Why were they being so weird.
“No, uhm,” Sophie said gently. “Nate passed sixteen years ago.”
Eliot blinked, his breathing becoming labored. “N-no – I saw him and you go in the car! Some dude was taking pictures—”
“The first David,” Parker murmured, telling the others and they all nodded in understanding. The only one not understanding was Eliot, so Sophie took his hand again.
“Eliot… quite some time has passed since the first David,” she said.
“It’s not 2008, man,” Hardison said.
They all fell silent, until Eliot boomed, “Well spit it out, dammit – all of you!”
“It’s 2035,” Parker said, and the world stopped spinning for Eliot for a second.
He huffed. “Har-har, folks – did you put them on this?” he asked Hardison. “I hit my head and you thought this would be funny?” But none of them laughed.
Instead they told him about a job – a job gone wrong. Where he had run after a rookie hitter, who had been in trouble, into a tunnel – and the tunnel had collapsed on Eliot. They had airlifted him out, covered in internal and external wounds.
Dr Paul had kept him in a coma for a month.
But Eliot didn’t feel like had just slept for a month – he closer felt to almost missing thirty odd years. A third of a life.
So he began to plead for it to be a joke; his body fighting his mind – his mind fighting his healing body, and with Dr Paul’s help, his team forced him back into a sleep until he calmed down.
It wasn’t until a few days later that he began to come to terms that he was actually suffering from amnesia. He was staring at himself in the clinic’s bathroom mirror – the signs of ageing visible in his face and his body. New scars he didn’t know about littered across his limbs.
His hand threaded tenderly over a shaven part of his head – the spot where he had been hit by a rock that caused this mess. He sighed, looking at his left hand – and even that piece of him looked foreign. Almost like something was missing there, but he didn’t know what.
Returning to his room using crutches, he was met with a sudden hush as Dr Paul had been speaking with the crew. Hardison offered to help him back into the bed but he pushed him away, sitting down on a chair instead.
“I have not missed this Eliot,” Hardison muttered and got elbowed by Parker. “Ow, babe—” Eliot knew his eyes were wide and everybody turned to stare at him. Babe? Babe?! What on earth—
Dr Paul cleared his throat. “As I was saying – Eliot should be in familiar environments and should be encouraged to trigger his own memories, not get information fed to him. Learning too much without any connection to memory can only worsen it.”
“Familiar environments?” Eliot grunted. “Like the office?”
They all flinched, and Sophie looked at Dr Paul to silently ask permission and he nodded.
“We haven’t been in LA for a while,” she explained. “We actually settled in New Orleans. Our Headquarters is in a jazz bar now.”
“Headquarters would be great,” Dr Paul agreed. “And his home—”
At the mention of his home, he noticed his team all shared glances and he could already feel himself getting sick at being treated like a frail princess on ice. Just as he was about to go off, Sophie said. “Let’s start with Headquarters and we can sort his home.”
At least Eliot could agree on that, imagining wherever he was living must be a mess if he hadn’t been there for a month.
“Be careful with introducing him to people who may know him now, but not back then,” Dr Paul continued. “Play it by ear with how his memory is returning.”
At that, too, they all shared secret glances, but beyond that he was as good as discharged and sent into the care of a grifter, a hacker and a thief.
Part of Eliot had hoped the second he would walk into the new Leverage Headquarters (new to him at least), his memories would hit him like a brick wall. The team had watched him carefully as he hopped on crutches through a courtyard – like he was supposed to have an important connection to it.
But to Eliot it was just a courtyard. And the jazz bar was just a jazz bar – not even the punch bag in the corner felt familiar. He could feel himself get frustrated, curling his left hand into a first – again feeling like something was missing there.
“We prepped a room for you,” Sophie said from the bar. “And Parker and Hardison are going to your home tomorrow to make it ready. They’re just picking up some food.”
“You live here alone?” Eliot grunted, but Sophie shook her head.
“I don’t live here, not anymore at least – mostly just rotating Leverage crews crash here. I live with—” Her voice trailed, slowly becoming aware of something she shouldn’t share. “You’ll be more comfortable in your home.”
And alone, Eliot thought.
He hopped to sit at the bar, accepting a drink that Sophie poured him.
“I know this must be tedious,” she said. “But you did a heroic thing saving Zachery—” He had no clue who Zachery was, only that he was a rookie hitter that he had been training – because apparently that was what he did now: train hitters. “And the job closed with a happy ending for our clients. As have hundreds of jobs over the past thirty years.”
Frowning Eliot almost couldn’t believe that he had now spent more years doing good than he had doing… well – terrible things. In his mind he still had a long journey ahead of him.
That evening Eliot had the distinct feeling that they were trying to recreate their usual dinners together with a Chinese takeaway. It felt familiar – but only in a way that they used to do this all the time in their LA office.
“So,” he started after a few bites. “You two are together?” He jerked his head to Parker and Hardison, and they guiltily looked at their own food. “And you and Nate?” Sophie sucked in her lips and Eliot chuckled. “Don’t suppose I have a hidden spouse somewhere, do I?”
They quietly joined his chuckle, but the smiles didn’t quite meet their eyes.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “The fact this all happened whilst we were still doing jobs shows me I did find my place in life.” He rolled his eyes when they all stared at him strangely lovingly.
“You sounded a bit like you there,” Sophie said. “Like you you – you now I mean.”
Again an eyeroll. “I’ve always been this – I just didn’t say things out loud because I was weary of you all.” But it gave him peace that they unlocked this part of him at some point over thirty years.
Thirty years, he thought again, and none of the people in front him seemed keen to actually tell him things, following Dr Paul’s orders. He was going to have to do his own research, which seemed extremely difficult because he had no clue how to work modern day technology.
After he had retreated to his room under the guise of going to sleep, he realized he had no computer – or a phone, which was apparently the main provider of internet usage nowadays. With grunts and groans, he searched the room for clues until he was forced to give up because of his body reaching its limit for the day.
And as he closed his eyes, all he dreamt about was the blonde woman, reading in a chair by his hospital bed.
Over the next few days, him trying to trigger his memory was proving fruitless. Hardison had started to drop client names, jobs and places they had been – the three of them apparently: Parker, Hardison and Eliot.
Something that sounded almost impossible for him to have agreed on willingly.
“You’re telling me I babysit you two for half of my life?” he complained, getting extremely sick of his crutches as he roamed headquarters. He was longing to be somewhere else, but he didn’t know where, wrecking his brain by trying to remember where he should be sleeping – what his home looked like.
At some point he had yelled in frustration at his left hand, wondering what the hell was wrong with it. Why couldn’t he remember?
“You’re being very harsh on yourself,” Sophie had said softly in the morning. During the evenings she had left for her home – with whomever that was. “And as it’s been a few days, I reckon it’s time for you to meet someone.”
Eliot didn’t know why, but he expected the blonde woman, and was vastly disappointed when it was a tall man, seemingly very happy to see him.
“Eliot, this is Mr Wilson—”
“Harry,” Mr Wilson said, offering to shake his hand. There was a moment of silence – like both of them were trying to see if his presence triggered a memory, but Eliot shook his head.
“You’re dating a lawyer?” he grunted to Sophie, who flustered very fast.
“How can you know that I was a lawyer if you lost your memory?” Harry asked. “Is it that distinctive?”
“I am not dating Mr Wilson.”
For a second Eliot just enjoyed how he had ruffled their feathers and told them the disappointing news that he had no clue who Harry was. This caused him to overhear whispered conversations, sense hushed worries and witness looks of sympathy over the course of the day. Every time his team thought he was out of earshot, they had secret conversations.
As he retreated to his room, he heard Parker say, “The farm is all set if we want to try that route.”
“I think we must,” Sophie said. “He’s been living there for fifteen years.”
“It’s risky,” Hardison said. “We did our best, but you know how he’s going to be—”
“It’s her plan,” Parker cut in. “We’ll have to put faith in it.”
Eliot closed the door quietly, wondering what on earth Sophie had planned at his home – and did Parker say it was a farm?
The next morning as he hopped to the bar, his team was waiting for him.
“I’m going to his – my home?” he asked, like he had deduced it. Older Eliot felt so foreign that he had started to refer to him as a different person.
“Yes,” Sophie confirmed. “However we’re slightly worried with how you may… overexert yourself as we won’t be there to keep an eye on you. So we hired a nurse to live with you for a bit.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” he grunted – he had been looking forward to being alone. To be somewhere that hopefully had a normal computer that didn’t require an impossible password like the ones at headquarters.
“The nurse just be there to help you,” Sophie assured. “She’ll be here in a minute and as you are unable to drive, she’ll drive you there. We agreed with her that over the weekends you can be here – talking with us will help.” Eliot didn’t miss the hope in her voice.
That was what everybody had here – hope.
Hope that he was fine.
Hope that he would remember.
Hope that their Eliot would return.
But for now Eliot hoped they were ready for extreme disappointment. It had been a week and not even crumbs of memories came to him – only memories from their first jobs.
He sighed, feeling like a sitting duck until his nurse would show up. Just as he was about to ask where his home was located at, a voice called down the courtyard.
“Hello?” It was a woman, and Eliot couldn’t explain the goosebumps spreading on his skin.
“In here!” Sophie yelled, her voice cracking slightly before she swallowed it away. All eyes were on the entry from the courtyard and it didn’t take long for a woman to appear, looking around the bar until her eyes rested on the group.
“Hi!” she said and Eliot’s mouth was dry. The blonde angel he had seen when he had first woken up slightly was walking towards him. She looked in her forties; soft laugh lines enhancing her beautiful hazel eyes. “You must be Eliot,” she added, holding out her hand. For a second he just stared at her, and he might have imagined everyone else holding their breath just like he was.
Then he reached to shake the angel’s hand.
“Y-yes,” he murmured. “That’s me.”
A palpable shift was noticeable, but Eliot paid it no mind.
“I’m Guinevere,” the angel said, smiling widely. Electricity passed through their hands as he shook and he wondered if she felt the same.
“Guinevere,” he repeated softly, and she made a face like she was telling him ‘I know right – who names their kid that?’.
“Please,” she said, continuing to hold his hand. “Call me Vera.”
Chapter Text
Eliot didn’t mention to Vera that he thought he had seen her by his hospital bed. With his memory gone he wasn’t even sure if he could trust himself that he had experienced it.
He tried to not overthink it as they drove out of town, Vera seemingly knowing the way without instructions. “I already dropped off my bag,” she told him after he questioned it. “And had a look at accessibility.”
“Thorough,” he grunted and she smiled, making him swallow hard.
“I aim to please.”
I bet you do, Eliot thought before closing his eyes and fiddling with his left hand. Just as he thought about lowering the car’s window, Vera did just that and he jerked to look at her.
“I can close it?” she said immediately, sensing his alertness.
“N-no, it’s fine,” he stammered and was again met with a beautiful smile. She turned the wheel and a sparkle of a diamond ring and a wedding band caught his eye. He let out an involuntary grunt – of course she was married.
“I can get you some painkillers at your home,” she said, mistaking his grunt, but he didn’t correct her. For another half an hour they drove through the vast Louisiana countryside. Why on earth did they leave Los Angeles? At least there it had dry heat – not this humidity.
“Here we are,” Vera murmured as they drove up a gravel road – a farmhouse appearing in his vision. It was a far cry from his Los Angeles condo: it looked a lot more homely. A family house even.
He had no recollection of it.
If it had been Sophie or any of the others, he knew they would have asked him if it triggered any memory, but Vera stayed quiet, focused on parking behind another car – his car he realized.
“I can tell you to stay in the car so I can get your crutches, but I have a feeling any order I give you will be met with defiance,” she told him with a mischievous look.
“You know me so well already,” Eliot said and he couldn’t help it – he gave her a flirty smile. He wanted to charm this woman, but had to resign that he was no longer in his late twenties – no matter what his brain was telling him. Except Vera didn’t seem to mind, sending him a wink as she jumped out of the car to grab his things. For the first time since he woke up he felt normal and he couldn’t thank the stars enough for that. He also counted his blessings that with Vera he didn’t have to worry about saying something stupid about his life that his team knew but he couldn’t remember.
“There’s just these steps,” Vera warned, following him to the porch. He had wanted to hop up each step, but his hesitation gave Vera plenty of time to take one of his crutches and duck under his arm as support. She was just as tall as him, her hand warm on his waist as she anchored him, and helped him up the stairs and onto the outside couch, which came with his internal question of why he had a couch on his porch.
“Future me likes to sit on his porch and yell at teens to get off his lawn?” he asked, not Vera in particular, but she was the only one there and she just chuckled.
“I’m sure he would use binoculars to see the teens as the lawn is immense,” she quipped, and he was starting to like this woman very much. From her bag she got a set of keys, fiddling with trying to find which one to use, and unlocked the front door. “Ready?” she asked, but Eliot eyed the door wearily.
His team had put all their hopes on that this house would trigger his memories and it was pressure he didn’t want. Vera didn’t say anything, moving to sit next to him on the couch instead.
“Or we can just sit here for a bit, just in case those pesky teens come.”
The sound of the wind filled the silence. Then Eliot asked, “You’re not American, are you?”
Vera gaped at him. “Well dang it, I thought I could fool you!” She laughed in a way that told him that she was not keeping it a secret. “No, I’m Dutch – but I’ve been living here for… oof – twenty-two years continuously. On and off before that.”
“Your accent has almost disappeared,” Eliot confided. “But there’s something… distinctive…”
She smiled softly, her eyes crinkling and she patted his hand. “How about something to drink? And a bite to eat?” Her head nudged to the door and with a deep breath he accepted her help up, hopping inside the farm with her as his crutch.
Inside it was much cooler, and he looked around the space. The room split into an open living space and kitchen on his right. It looked well lived in, and with the smell of sawdust and paint still in the air – recently renovated.
On his left there was a hallway, which was painted a dark blue color, with two doors on the right until it ended abruptly into a bookcase.
“Not to give you a tour of your own home, but—” Vera said, and began pointing at places – kitchen, toilet – he was assured that he had an en-suite in his bedroom. She didn’t pry to see if it triggered any memories, for which he was glad.
Because no matter how nice this home his future self had created was; he could have stepped into any home and would have believed it was his if anyone had told him so.
He definitely preferred being at the farm than at Headquarters. It was a lot quieter with only Vera around, bossing him to take any prescribed meds, and he was starting to enjoy their nightly ritual of sitting on the porch couch – breathing in the nature that surrounded them – before they headed to their respective rooms.
Vera was staying in what she claimed was a guest bedroom – which was the door right next to his master bedroom – and would disappear into it once she made sure he was comfortable in his bed.
“Your spouse doesn’t mind? That you’re staying here?” he asked one evening, and she had given him a soft secret smile.
“A job is a job, and I’m off on the weekends,” she said and winked. The team had been serious when they had told him that he would be at Headquarters on the weekends – Vera dropping him off with the promise of picking him up on the Sunday. Staying with his team for two days knocked him out so badly that he slept in on the Monday back at the farm.
He hopped into the living room and stopped in his tracks.
Vera was curled up on the couch, a book in her hands and reading glasses balancing on her nose. She looked exactly like how she had done when he had woken up slightly in the clinic.
Her bespectacled eyes looked up at him and her face brightened up instantly.
“Good morning,” she greeted him with a smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Like Hardison made me watch a whole bunch of Marvel films because he was jealous that I could experience it for the first time again,” he groaned, sitting down on the couch across of her. “I’m sure future me shared the same sentiments towards it.”
“I don’t know, you loved dressing up as Bucky Barnes—” She hiccuped, eyeing him with wide eyes. “Or so I had seen from pictures…”
Eliot eyed her wearily – that was strange. “What did you do this weekend?” he asked, trying to eye the book she was holding. “Catching up on some reading?”
“Sorry, grabbed it from your bookshelves,” she said, putting it away. “I didn’t want to make too much noise whilst you were sleeping.”
He took in how she was sitting, her legs tucked underneath her and a pillow resting on her lap. She looked more at home than he felt.
“You don’t use bookmarks?” he asked and she smiled warmly.
“Only if have random pieces of paper at hand – drives my husband mad,” she grinned, before offering, “Breakfast?”
“Yes please,” Eliot replied, quietly stewing on her mentioning her husband, and they continued their routine. On Wednesdays, Vera drove him to the clinic so Paul could assess his healing – and he was healing at a rapid pace it seemed – all apart from his mind, because to everyone’s worry; he had not conjured up a single memory.
After two weeks of no progress, he could even sense that Vera was getting worried. She had a frown between her brows as she drove him to the farm.
“What’s causing the frown?” he asked innocently, but Vera almost drove them into a ditch. “Woah!”
“Sorry!” she said, her voice high pitched. “Sorry. I, uh, I was just thinking about if I need to extend my stay.”
Eliot hadn’t thought about that yet – she was there for his physical wounds, not the mental ones. But somehow her presence in the farm helped with his mental turmoil – and to prove that he most definitely still needed her, that night he was in front of her door, wondering why he was so scared to knock on it.
Just as he had the courage to knock, the door actually opened slightly when he touched it – showing a sliver of a room with empty shelves on the wall. He stopped breathing when Vera walked into view – wearing nothing more than her bra and panties – pacing as she was on the phone.
“I know, princess,” she murmured. “Think of it as a sleepover.”
Eliot let his eyes roam over her body – his own sparking interest straight away – and took in the stretch marks across her soft stomach, indicating that she might had have children – and that she was very likely talking to one on the phone at that moment.
“I know it’s weird to have a sleepover with your sister, but it’s just for now—” she swallowed. “Yeah, I miss daddy too.”
She turned and Eliot spotted another scar on her stomach – a round spot near her waist. A very distinctive scar. He frowned: why would a nurse have a bullet wound scar?
Just as he was going to retreat back to his room and give up on his question, the wooden floor creaked and Vera stopped talking.
“Eliot?” she called. “Princess, I gotta go but I’ll see you on Saturday, okay? Yes. Kisses back!”
The door opened enough for Vera to slip out of her room – thankfully wearing a robe over her underwear – and closed the door behind her. “Hey,” she said softly. “Do you need anything?”
He felt stupid – embarrassed, regretting everything with every fiber of his being of standing in front of that door.
“Eliot?” she nudged and finally he held up the remote of his bedroom’s TV.
“I don’t know how to work all these streaming services,” he admitted. “Figured I should see what this Bucky character is about.”
With a warm smile, she held out her hand to accept the remote and jerked her head to his room. “Lead the way.”
Thus a new routine was established, and after dinner they would lounge on Eliot’s bed to watch whatever caught his attention on what felt like a million streaming platforms.
Spending time with Vera made Eliot grow increasingly jealous… of Vera’s husband.
It didn’t feel fair that this husband got to enjoy the way she laughed at funny moments or stare glassy eyed at emotional ones, and that he got to act on what Eliot wanted to do. He wanted to gather her into a cuddling position – to let her hide her face in his chest when it was scary and to poke fun at her for it. He wanted to play with her hair and kiss her senseless to a point that they would have forgotten about the movie. He felt like a teenager.
One weekend he was zoning out to Hardison ramble about the second rebirth of Marvel and when he realized Eliot was not listening, he asked, “How’s nurse Vera?”
His head snapped up and Hardison’s eyes turned slightly wide at the intensity he must be exuding. Eliot forced himself to calm down and said. “She’s—” Smart? Funny? Smells like magnolias? “—fine.”
“Fine, or—” He grinned cheekily. “Fiiine?”
Eliot looked at him murderous. “She’s fine.”
“Sure thing, brother,” Hardison said, still grinning. “Speaking of brothers – I got sign off from Dr Paul to introduce you to my sibling – Bree?” He gave Eliot a look he began to associate with the team trying to see if they triggered a memory, but the name meant nothing to him.
“You have a sibling?”
“More like an annoying younger less cooler version of me, but yeah – they’ve been the hacker and maker first with you guys and then for international.”
Eliot frowned. “If they had been hacking with us, where were you?”
Hardison sighed. “You know, I think you may be even more annoying without your memories and that is saying something.”
Meeting Bree didn’t magically return his memories, though he got a big kick out of telling them they were a cooler version of Hardison.
“I appreciate that,” they said with a crooked grin. “You know – you taught me a lot.”
“I did?” he asked in surprise.
“Yeah, you’re a really great teacher.”
That was the second time his future self was associated with teaching – he never really thought he would do anything else but what he did with the team. Apart from maybe owning a restaurant. Speaking of food.
“Is the food truck outside any good?” he asked Bree and they huffed, thinking he was joking.
“Oh,” they said, realization dawning. “Y-yeah, they employ veterans and—”
“Is part of Leverage?” he deadpanned.
“—is part of Leverage,” they conceded. “Your observation skills are terrifying.”
“So I’ve been told.”
That evening when Vera picked him up, he couldn’t help but notice that she looked tired. Her happy-go-lucky attitude seemed to be on a damper and Eliot asked if she still was up for a movie that night, promising it was her pick.
The suggestion made her smile – but not a happy one, it was more a longing sad smile. She did agree to join him for a movie, but promptly fell asleep barely fifteen minutes into it.
Though they had been on this bed for many evenings at that point – her being asleep changed the atmosphere in the room. The bed was massive, he didn’t know why his future self wanted an Alaskan king sized bed, but it suddenly felt a lot smaller with Vera asleep on it. She was clutching one of the many pillows and looked indescribably beautiful. As always she was under the blankets – claiming she was cold due to growing up without air condition.
Swallowing, Eliot knew he was being extremely weird and creepy – in his head she was actually quite a bit older than he was used to chasing, even though physically he was older than her.
But why did he want to stroke the frown between her brows until it was gone? Why did he want to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear? And worst of all, why did he want to hold her close and fall asleep like that?
He thought about waking her up, but looking at how comfortable she appeared – he just turned off the TV and the lights. For the first time since being in his so called home, he fell asleep thinking it felt marginally better. Like a puzzle piece just clicked into place.
Eliot woke up the next morning half hoping that he had his memories back and that he had woken up to a life where he slept next to Vera every night.
They were much closer to each other than when they had fallen asleep. Like they had gravitated to one another during the night.
Vera was on her side, one leg slung across Eliot’s uninjured one and her hand touching his bare chest. She was snoring softly, and Eliot decided not to wake her just yet. He wanted to take a moment to just gaze at her. Had it really been only three weeks since she had come aboard?
She had freckles on her nose and soft inviting lips. He was cursing that another man got to kiss them every morning.
Around her neck she was wearing a chain – the pendant disappearing into her pajama top, and just as he tried to view it, she smacked her lips.
The hand on his bare chest curled, giving a gentle squeeze of the soft layer of fat and muscle he had there. Immediately he seized breathing.
Her lips broke into a big smile, before uttering the words, “G’morning, babe.”
Eliot let out a choking noise and her eyes sprang wide open, realization dawning what she was doing. In a flurry of blankets and pillows – and Vera accidentally kicking his leg – she rolled off the bed. She ran towards the door, creating as much space as possible between them and apologizing profusely.
“Vera, it’s fine—” he said, actually meaning it was more than fine. Hell; her calling him babe sounded like the most normal thing he had heard since his recovery. Another puzzle piece that clicked.
“I, uh,” she blushed adorably. “Do you mind forgetting that happened?”
Eliot shrugged. “I’ve forgotten about thirty years worth, what’s one more minute added?” He tried to keep it lighthearted, but he knew he was going to replay that minute over and over – her hand still a warm imprint on his skin. She blushed again, before dashing out of his room like her pajamas were on fire.
The following days Vera looked like she was going through it – dark circles under her eyes, her hair a mess – and she was just generally running around frantically. She barely celebrated the news Eliot could reduce his crutches usage, and the next day she was even more hectic.
“So sorry, I’m going to have to drop you off at headquarters today,” she told him around lunch time, grabbing personal things left, right and center. “My daughter got into trouble at school and I need to speak with the teacher—”
Eliot was sitting on the couch, watching her run around – and had no desire to go to HQ early. “Is headquarters on the way to your daughter’s school?” She stopped and thought for a second, but didn’t answer – which gave him answer enough. “I’ll be fine alone, you know.”
She swallowed. “I – I agreed to not leave—”
“Jeez, Vera, this is your daughter – just go.”
Eliot could use the alone time if he was honest – maybe even some with his right hand.
Looking at him, she seemed to be going through some internal debate before checking with him that he knew how to use his phone.
“It’s a burner phone, I’ll manage,” he assured, following her with his gaze as she continued her tornado.
“Okay,” she said, grabbing her bag and car keys from the kitchen counter before leaning over the couch behind him to – to what? Eliot swallowed, taking a deep breath and smelling those magnolias again. She was so close to his face that it was almost instinct to give her a kiss, but before he could entertain that thought, Vera straightened up suddenly and left in a rush, telling him she would be back tonight.
Chuckling, Eliot looked around at the mess Vera left and disappeared into his bedroom – making good on that alone time.
After a few hours – including a very sated nap and a leisurely shower – he began to realize just how much he had been relying on Vera’s company. The farm suddenly seemed very quiet.
Dinner passed in solitude, and as it grew darker without a sign of Vera – and no series on the TV seemed to hold his attention – he decided to tidy up.
Eliot picked up the stray book Vera had laying around and from it a piece of paper fell. Her damn random bookmarks, Eliot realized fondly. Keeping his finger in between the pages from where it had fallen, he bent over to grab it and realized it was a Polaroid. A Polaroid with Leverage people. A grin spread on his face – he hadn’t seen much of those from the years he was missing so he took any crumb.
It showed a costume party – a Marvel costume party – and this must have been the picture Vera mentioned.
Hardison was in the middle, dressed as the Falcon’s Captain America. Sophie was Nick Fury for some reason, Harry was Loki, Parker was Captain Marvel and Bree was Iron Man. He spotted himself indeed as Bucky Barnes, frowning grumpily at the camera. It was very in character and he chuckled. What a bunch of nerds, he thought.
But then he noticed someone next to him, dressed as the original Captain America. She was leaning against his shoulder, smiling broadly.
Eliot’s head began to hurt and the book slipped from his hand. For some inexplicable reason – right next to him in the photograph – was Vera.
How was that possible?
He tried to rationalize it, but on the Polaroid it was written in his handwriting Hardison’s birthday 2025.
That was at least ten years of Vera knowing him.
And Eliot knowing her.
Headquarters, he suddenly thought – she hadn’t said the jazz bar, which was how she should know it as – she had said headquarters when she thought about dropping him off today… did that mean that Vera was… Leverage? A grifter?
With his head throbbing, his feet had taken him to the door of Vera’s room without a conscious thought. The door was locked, and he should respect the small space of his house that was hers. But then again… why was she in a Leverage picture? From ten years ago? And why did she not tell him she knew him.
He was sure there was a less messy way of picking the lock, but he remembered it was his house and he could afford to fix a door, so he shouldered the door open, groaning at the sudden pain in his healing body.
As he had seen before, the room was filled with shelves. Except it was not a guest bedroom—there was simply a mattress on the floor tucked next to a desk. The room itself was an office. Why would he have an office? And they weren’t just shelves—they were bookcases. One wall was filled with books, the other was empty. Why?
The desk was cleared, but showed signs of cables that used to plug into a computer. Vera had left no belongings – so she was smart enough to stay mobile just in case. Which begged to differ how had she missed the photograph in the book?
He frowned, grabbing random books from the shelves but finding none of them to have hidden connections. Something didn’t make sense in this room, though, he thought. The filled bookshelves looked like they had been like that for years, but the other side looked abandoned – deliberately so. Where had those books gone?
The bookcase in the hallway, he thought. The paint and sawdust smell he remembered from when he first entered the farm.
He walked into the hallway, overly noticing the abruptness of where it ended into the bookcase. Someone had built it recently he deduced and he knocked on the back of it.
Hollow.
So there was space behind it – a whole room potentially.
Without a thought, he rid one shelf of all its books, ignoring the mess he made on the floor. For the first time since waking up he felt somewhat normal – like he was on a job, scouting for leads.
The wall was made of plywood – thin but too dangerous to punch it with his fist. He looked around and found a baseball bat near the door – he didn’t want to know what warranted him having one there, but it was useful in this moment.
He twirled the bat in his hand, preparing for anything that could be hiding behind it. Was this even his house? Or was it just a safe house his team put him in?
With a well aimed shot, he knocked a hole in the wood and the splinters fell through the bookcase onto the other side. He peered through the hole into the darkness. Somehow he had expected a storage room – a closet maybe, but instead he looked into more hallway. Several more doors littered the walls, and there were piles of boxes and frames. Was this is secret stash?
Well if it was… why was there a box of kids toys?
Lights from a car coming up the driveway shone into the windows, and Eliot moved to hide next to the front door.
Vera entered the house quietly a few minutes later, looking around for Eliot, but before she could call out his name – or notice the mess – he grabbed her by the collar of her blouse and pushed her against the wall.
He felt her body tense and she initiated a defense move – one that didn’t seem very distinctive for a nurse and actually revealed to him that he was on the right track. At realizing it was Eliot, she stopped her attack and clawed at his hands with hers to lessen his grip.
“Eliot?” she asked calmly. “What’s wrong?”
“Who are you?” he hissed, pressing her harder against the wall – his injured leg throbbing. “Are you a grifter? From international? Did the team put you here to spy?”
“Eliot—”
“Who – are – you?” he gritted through his teeth, and he accidentally pulled her blouse open – revealing the chain she wore around her neck.
“I’m Vera,” she said, trying to seek recognition in his eyes. Eliot groaned – not her too.
“I don’t know you,” he hissed and she flinched like the words physically hurt her. “Who are you? What’s your full name?”
“Guinevere—” she said, hesitating to go on but realizing the jig was up. “Guinevere Merel—”
“Guinevere Merel Klein – do you take this man—” A voice echoed in his head – was that Sophie?
“I do,” Vera’s voice said but didn’t come from the Vera in front of him. His head began to hurt – an image of a younger Vera in a white dress overlapping the Vera in front of him.
“Your full name,” Eliot demanded.
“Guinevere Merel—” Vera repeated.
At the same time Sophie’s voice echoed, “Eliot William—”
“—Spencer,” Vera finished.
He thought he was hearing double – or that Sophie’s echoing voice had overtaken Vera’s. But the sudden silence was deafening. Then Vera released her hands from his and Eliot spotted something golden at the end of the chain around her neck.
It was a ring.
The wedding band had the exact same thickness as the aged line on his left hand’s ring finger – the hand that something had felt wrong with ever since he had woken up. His head felt like it was bursting, but Vera had one more thing to add to his turmoil.
“I’m your wife.”
Chapter Text
Two months earlier
Vera had always feared the day she would get the call. Though years passed without incidents, and Eliot mostly watched the crew from the sidelines nowadays – somewhere deep down she always had been on edge with anticipation.
So when the moment came, and Parker on the other end of the line said, “Vera – it’s Eliot—”, a familiar calmness spread coolly through her veins. She was glad it had been Parker; she was to the point with a plan to get Vera to Dr Paul’s clinic already in place and care for their daughters sorted.
All she learned was that he wasn’t dead.
Parker left the ‘yet’ unspoken.
Entering the clinic, she hated how her body had regressed into a frozen fear – she didn’t want to be that person anymore. She didn’t want it to be an example for their daughters to not be able to showcase fear. But for now it was all she could be.
The first moment actual emotions thawed the calmness was when she saw Zachary in the clinic’s hallway. The young hitter had been with the team for three months. Eliot had been impressed with his fighting capabilities, but he had a weakness – he was overly confident.
“Mrs Spencer!” he croaked upon spotting her, and Vera couldn’t help but look him over like a mother, wincing at the abrasions and bruises all over his dust-covered body.
“Zachary,” she said softly, allowing him to hug her.
“I’m so sorry,” he cried, his shoulders shaking. “I thought I had it, I didn’t – I didn’t realize. He—” A sob. “—he pushed me out of the way before—”
“Vera?” Sophie’s voice called, and more people turned a corner, appearing into the hallway. All of them were covered in dust and rocks and Vera knew they had all moved heaven and earth to get Eliot out – a debt she could never repay.
Hardison took over Zachery’s hug, Sophie and Parker taking her hands to guide her to wherever they had been.
“Dr Paul flew in a specialist surgeon and has been keeping him stable since he arrived,” Sophie whispered. “We’re waiting on an update.”
It had been a rare job – almost a treat with the original crew. They were all there to observe new recruits and to help or step in where needed. Once it started going wrong – it had turned disastrous. The way Eliot had looked once they had freed him was nightmare inducing – Sophie could not close her eyes without seeing it.
They sat down where they had been waiting before Vera’s arrival. Sophie thought about offering her a cup of tea, but Vera seemed frozen in place in between her and Parker, so she let her set the pace. Hardison rejoined them after a minute, holding Parker’s other hand – and that was how they waited. Waited for news.
Vera did not break at any point.
It had felt like hours had passed when Dr Paul emerged, bringing good and bad news. “He’s stable, but we’ll keep him under to allow his body to heal,” he had said, and then added with tearful eyes. “We lost him briefly – he had to be resuscitated.”
Still Vera didn’t break.
“You don’t have to be strong,” Sophie had told her as they made preparations to stand guard at all times. “Not for us, not for your daughters—” Her breath hitched. “Not for him.”
But she refused.
Days passed.
Weeks passed.
“He’s healing well,” Dr Paul had told Vera after she arrived at her usual guard shift. If it was up to her, she would have been there around the clock – but being a mother meant she could not put herself first. So every day in the morning when her daughters were at school, she read by his bedside.
Emma and Alice had cried against her chest at learning that their daddy was hurt. She couldn’t bring herself to take them to see him – not unless the worst was about to happen.
After a month, Dr Paul had begun reducing his medication to see if he would wake up by himself and one afternoon after she had left the clinic to pick up her daughters from school, she was told he had woken up – and that he was speaking.
She had made a u-turn back to the clinic, where she was met by an anxious looking crew. “What?” she asked out of breath. “Is he – is he okay?” The silence told her enough. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s suffering from some memory loss,” Sophie revealed.
“Big memory loss,” Parker said.
“What—” Vera suppressed hyperventilation. “From when?”
Hardison sucked his teeth and bit the bullet. “He thinks it’s 2008.”
And that was when Vera broke, fully collapsing on her legs. Because she and Eliot had had met in 2009.
Which meant Eliot had forgotten her.
“Eliot Spencer,” Hardison said, pulling up pictures of him on the screen at headquarters. “Hitter, retrieval specialist – great dad and husband,” he said with a wink to the crew. “Makes a mean chili.”
After Eliot had shown no signs of getting his memory back instantly, the crew decided to do what they knew best: run a job. With Eliot as their mark.
Hardison continued. “Eliot has memories up to the First David job – right before we were all made and Sterling blew up one of my favorite homes, but that leaves twenty seven years of missing memories.”
Sophie wrung her hands. “We have to remember Eliot from back then… feisty and not asking for help. He also doesn’t know that we know him so much better than he ever thought we would.”
“He’ll be paranoid,” Parker quipped. “And also annoyed likely.” She had been uncharacteristically quiet ever since Eliot woke up, Sophie wondered if she felt a guilt to what happened – then again they all did.
“Dr Paul reckons we could trigger his memories by going through familiar actions in familiar spaces – starting with headquarters. It will only be people he already knows, so no Bree or Harry—”
“—or me,” Vera said calmly, entering the room she got married in.
“Vera,” Sophie said sternly. “We agreed we would take this.”
“You’re planning to try and get into my husband’s head. I know you all managed to pull of the White Rabbit—”
“We won’t go that far,” Sophie assured. “All we’re going to is simulate situations from the past – dinner with us, conversations he initiated – drop names, places.”
Vera took a deep breath, hugging herself. “He’s going to catch on.”
Sophie huffed. “We’re very good at what we do – we’ll get our Eliot back before we know it.”
“I will literally annoy him back to himself if I must,” Hardison promised. “He has a chance to experience so many movies for the first time again and he will just pull up his nose.”
Parker stayed quiet, staring at Vera and opening her mouth before closing it again.
“Fine,” Vera finally said, looking at the screen where her husband proudly showed off Alice as a newborn. “But I get plan B.” She turned to look at Sophie intensely, and she conceded.
“Fine,” she echoed. “Let’s go steal our Eliot.”
Sophie would not admit to Vera that she had to resort to plan C to K before she agreed for Vera to start make preparations for plan B. Predictably Eliot saw right through any attempts of her and Hardison trying to trigger memories.
They tried playing the country song he had recorded. (“I went undercover as a singer? Was the world ending?”)
Replicated the Roy Chappell sandwich for him. (“Baseball? I don’t like baseball – seriously was the world ending?”)
Boxing, ice hockey, golf – Hardison even suggested to handcuff to him again and have a walk in the woods. This made Sophie finally cave and let Vera try her plan. So while Hardison and Bree worked on renovating the farm to erase any evidence of a wife and kids, she asked Parker to try.
“Parker, you’re barely spoken to Eliot since he got here,” she told her. “Try to connect something to a job!”
“I’m not taking him to an ice cave,” Parker said. “Or on a riverboat casino.”
“I thought we had discussed literal thinking,” Sophie sighed, but noticed that there was palpable resistance for Parker to interact with Eliot. “Something wrong Par—”
“Can I go to Vera’s and help Hardison?” she asked abruptly, and left without even getting an answer. Sophie had no other choice but to initiate plan B – with a few conditions. Eliot would stay at HQ over the weekends so Vera could be with her daughters and they would try and introduce him to Harry first to see how he would react to people he knew but didn’t anymore.
“I know you’re hating being away from him, but we can’t just spring on you him, what if he does remember you? What if seeing you makes it worse?”
Vera had begrudgingly agreed, but Sophie wasn’t done.
“I’m also giving you a deadline,” she said and Vera had startled.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“If he does not show any sign of getting his memories back within four weeks, we’ll revert to the original plan,” Sophie insisted. Anger and sadness toiled with each other on Vera’s face, but Sophie was adamant. “It’s not fair to you, to your daughters – or even Eliot – to try and spin a web you’ll get lost in. You need to know when to give up.”
Sophie could tell she didn’t like that, but it was her job to ensure safety. Bristling, Vera had agreed and told her, “This will work.”
But after three weeks of no improvements, lack of sleep due to sleeping on the floor and missing her daughters so fiercely it was making her physically ill – Vera could only cling onto her determination that she knew her husband, and she knew how to get him back.
However, now that Eliot had learned the truth, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
Holding his gaze, he was looking at her coldly. He looked at her like she disgusted him.
“Are you conning me?” he grunted. “Is this a set up?”
“I just wanted you home,” she gritted. “HQ was doing nothing and everyone was getting worried—”
“At least I know them – you’re a stranger.”
She flinched again, but pulled it together. “You’ve known me for three weeks now, and I know when Eliot Spencer lets his guard down—”
“You don’t know me,” Eliot sneered. “You may know whatever guy I am in the future – but you don’t know current me. It takes what – fifteen years for us to meet?”
Whether he was right or wrong, she gave no sign or tell. “So you are a grifter,” he said much softer. “I don’t see myself marrying a grifter.”
Her nostrils flared. “Well then,” she said in the same cool tone. “It’s like you said – you don’t know me.” He scoffed, but she wasn’t done. “But I want my husband back, so first thing to know about me, Eliot Spencer – I don’t give up.”
The fire in her eyes told him that at least was true. He looked her up and down, remembering how she almost fought him when he grabbed her. She knew how to fight – but not his style. So she must have learned before meeting him. Did they meet on a job?
Another scoff. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll entertain the idea – we’re married.” And to himself he had to admit that it sounded right. It felt good. But he wasn’t telling the woman who basically kidnapped him that. “How did we meet? How long have we been married for?”
She sucked in her lips. So she was following Dr Paul’s advice, he thought. Everything she was doing – how she reacted, Eliot made a mental note of. If anything right now made him feel better, it was treating her like a mark.
“You better start talking,” Eliot grunted. “Or I will use that godforsaken burner phone or drive myself to Headquarters, my leg be damned.”
And fully to his surprise, Vera laughed. Her laugh was loud, beautiful – slightly hysterical and ended in a snort. “Oh you did not just try to threaten me, what am I? A mark?”
He was giving her his best murderous look and it didn’t stop her laughing.
“You’re adorable,” she sighed.
Eliot felt unstable – who was this woman? Why was she immune? Did he need to physically fight her—
“No.”
She said it so suddenly, so harshly, that Eliot stopped mid train of thoughts.
“No what?” he grunted.
“You’re not going to fight me,” she said and his eyebrows shot up – could she read his mind? “You’re injured, it wouldn’t be fair.”
“It would actually,” he said with a low voice, and suddenly he imagined fighting her – based on her initial defense he knew what her style was. She would fight with her legs – her long, glorious legs – and he swallowed thinking about having them wrapped around his waist. It had been what he was imagining when he was jacking off mere hours ago.
“Oh it wouldn’t,” she assured, grinning devilishly. His mouth dried when she began to take off her blouse and she inspected the missing buttons. She was wearing a white tank top – the wedding ring on the chain bouncing against her chest. “And I really liked this blouse,” she sighed before tossing it aside. With her hands on her hips she looked at him, biting her lip like she was considering what to do next.
“I’m—” she started before saying with resignation, “I had to try. I could not let them keep you from your home – which I know they only wanted to do to accommodate me. But I had a solid plan—”
“Well your plan didn’t work, because I don’t remember anything,” Eliot huffed, however the quirk of her lip into the smallest of grins told him otherwise.
“Then why do you sleep on the left side of our bed?” she purred and he just stared at her.
He was having trouble coming up with a retort – he had indeed just been sleeping on the left, even though he didn’t have a preference. He didn’t use to have a preference at least.
She continued. “Why do you roll down the window of the car at the exact same time – every time?”
“Because—” he started, but the reason sounded weird – there was just a feeling that he had to. Like how she had done it during their first drive, he had made a mental note it was how she liked it. He wanted to do it for her. “I—”
She was approaching him now – almost prowling. “I see him – my husband – whenever we sit on the porch couch – our porch couch – that you made for me.” He swallowed. “I see him whenever you tried to walk into that bookcase—” She pointed at the mess that was the fake wall in the hallway. “Because my husband knows it’s not supposed to be there.” He clenched his jaw – she was right; he had almost walked into it a few times.
With a fierceness she said, “I’ve not been trying anything—I’ve not been forcing anything—because I know the only way to get my husband back is to let him act on instinct.”
And Vera knew his instinct on his farm was to just be with her. Every inch of their home was made in mind to be shared with her and their children, and somewhere in his missing mind, he still knew how to act upon it.
“You know me,” she added softly, “because you’ve been showing it to me.”
Her hand was stretched out to him, but he stepped back, ignoring the hurt in her face. He needed to create distance between them, knowing that if he had indeed been acting on instinct – he had been fighting one gut feeling tooth and nail ever since she had driven him to this farm.
“It—” he swallowed a lump in his throat. “It just can’t be. This has to be a trick – I – I must still be in a coma.”
“Eliot—”
He closed his eyes – his gut instinct told him that her saying his name was wrong. This had to be a dream.
“Babe…” she said much softer and he knew deep down that felt right, but he continued to fight it.
“No,” he grunted, clutching his head that began to burst again. He had to fight this – this could not be right.
Her hands cradled his around his head, and he felt her body heat in front of him. Goosebumps spread on his arms and he actually resorted to his torture resistance tactics to block her out – that’s how much in pain he felt.
“You know me,” she repeated. “You married me—”
“I couldn’t have—”
“Why?” she asked. “Because of Aimee?” He flinched. “I know about her. I’ve met her, you saved her stable—”
“Vera—” but that didn’t feel right to say – that was not the right way to call her.
“I know you,” she said, cupping his jaw and he opened his eyes, tears filling them. He saw the hope in her facial expression. The hope that was she was doing was working, but it wasn’t – it was making it worse. He had to fight it and took her hands to make her stop. The rejection made her nose flare.
“I couldn’t have married you,” he said darkly. Her own urge to fight set her eyes on blazing.
“And why’s that then?” she snarled. “Enlighten me.”
He knew he could punch where it hurt – he could tell her he didn’t like her, that he didn’t find her attractive – even though that was the biggest lie he could utter. Worse things popped up in his head he could say to make her coil away from him.
“Why could you not have married me?” she insisted on knowing. “Why? Because of your promise to serve your country? To serve your team? To—”
And then the truth burst out of him, “Because I cannot imagine what on earth could have redeemed me enough to have been worthy of you.”
The silence cloaked them gently. Like the storm just left through the front door. He expected her to laugh – to tell her he was being ridiculous.
But she just stared at him mournfully.
“Redemption is a process,” she said quietly. “And any of your family – your team,” she clarified when his breath hitched,“will tell you that – as they joined you on this journey.” He wanted to huff – they wouldn’t know, they wouldn’t underst— “I know you, Eliot Spencer,” she again cupped his jaw. “I have looked your arch nemesis in the eye as I told him your name, because the most comforting thing I could hear in that moment was knowing that you were coming for me.”
A darkness clouded over her eyes at the memory, and he wondered if she meant Damien Moreau. Could he really have opened those wounds again? Had he really put her in his point of view? How could he have failed like that.
“That’s only proof I wouldn’t have married you,” he said gruffly. “Why would I have allowed you into a life of that many dangers? That much trouble?”
She let out a snort. “Second thing to know about me – I attract trouble.” Her hands moved to rake through his hair like she had been doing it as naturally as breathing. “It’s how I met you.”
With the last of his strength, he fought the instinct that had been simmering low in his belly. She was so close that his hands hovered over the curves of her hips, the heat from her body was inviting. Give in, a voice said in his head – followed by a stab of pain and another overlap of a Vera with long brown hair and bangs, staring at his lips – and the Vera in front of him was as well.
“… because I know the only way to get my husband back is to let him act on instinct.”
Fight it.
Resist.
Her breath was warm and she was so close, he could count the freckles on her nose. Part of him already knew the exact number of freckles were twenty-six.
Fight it.
Resist.
Give in.
“Eliot?” she whispered, and he let out a low growl. His hands finally grabbed her hips – muscle memory telling him he had done that many times.
Fight it.
Give in.
Prove her wrong.
If she was so set that he would get his memories by giving in to his instincts, then he would prove her theory wrong by doing just that.
He stopped fighting it.
Stopped resisting it.
Finally after three weeks of physical and mental torture – he gave in.
And kissed her.
Chapter Text
His hand moved to cup her jaw, keeping her close as he deepened the kiss. Eliot wanted it to last forever.
Their bodies were molded against each other; every atom of him aware of where they were touching.
The euphoria of having a first kiss was unequivocal to Eliot – because that was what it was: a first kiss. He did not get his memories back by the magic of it, but he was going to make his damn most out of it.
Vera squirmed against him slightly, opening her mouth to let his tongue in, and he exhaled through his nose – the thrill of her willingness electrifying his body. The hand he still had on her hip roamed further and squeezed the glorious globe of her ass, and he involuntarily thrust forward – his arousal almost having a mind of its own. She squeaked against his lips and before he could move to kiss a very inviting spot where her jaw met her throat, Vera pulled back.
Their lips were swollen and slick with saliva. Her eyes searched his – but he knew what she was looking for was not there. Not a single spark of recognition was there and he pushed her away.
“Drive me to HQ tomorrow,” he grunted, leaving her alone – and heartbroken – in the living room as he went to his bedroom and closed the door.
To his surprise Vera followed him into Headquarters as they arrived. He was a day earlier than usual, finding Sophie doing some paperwork at the bar and she startled upon seeing them together.
“Oh! Um – d-do you need something, Vera?”
“I know,” said Eliot at the same time as Vera said. “He caught on.”
Sophie swallowed before asking, “And your memory?”
Eliot stormed off before she could finish asking, refusing to use his crutches all together, but before he could disappear into the room he had been staying at he looked back to the bar.
Sophie was hugging Vera, gently stroking her hair as Vera’s shoulders shook whilst she cried into the crook of her neck. “It’s okay,” Sophie soothed. “You want to tell me what happened?”
The way Vera clung onto her gave him the indication how well integrated she was into this team – this ‘family’ as Vera had described them.
Eliot wanted to break something or punch someone with the frustration he was building up. The room he was staying at had a mirror and he stared at himself. Strangely he looked quite a bit better than last weekend – there was more color in his face and a stab of pain burst in his head again where he saw an overlap of himself in a gray suit, checking his hair in the same mirror. He closed his eyes, willing the headache away.
Then he heard it before he sensed it – a soft distinctive electrical click – and he quickly turned around to grab an arm holding a taser, ready to strike him.
“Parker, what the hell!” he exclaimed, realizing who it was. “What’s wrong with you?!”
The words made her flinch, but she seemed insistent of threatening him with the taser. “You made Vera sad,” she said, clicking the taser again.
“And that warrants this?”
“Just be grateful I’ve upgraded from stabbing,” Parker said, smirking briefly before turning serious again. “Why would you make Vera sad?”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Eliot countered, diverting the question. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Why?” And why was she so protective over Vera?
“Vera has gone through hell since the tunnel collapsed – we all have, and yeah the tunnel collapsed onto you,” Parker snipped. “But that doesn’t give you the right to make her sad. She’s just doing her best!”
So Vera really was part of this family – he hadn’t kept her in the dark about his work.
“She lied to me,” he growled.
“Oh, get over it.”
“Why have you been avoiding me?” he insisted.
Finally Eliot got the upper hand and snatched the taser from her hand, shaking out its batteries. Parker bristled, crossing her arms.
“Why, Parker?” he continued. “Have I done something over the past years that made it come to this?”
With a sigh, Parker said. “It’s not you, it’s you.”
He frowned, feeling like his head was about to burst again. “How does that make sense?”
She let out a groan of frustration. “You you – you now – past you! Urgh!” Covering her face with her hands, she softly confessed, “I was avoiding you because this you doesn’t like me yet. And I didn’t want it to undo the years of what we built together. Our bond – our companionship.”
Eliot looked at her quietly.
“Parker…”
“You used to always ask me what was wrong with me or tell me that something was wrong with me and like – I know, thank you, I’ve been seeing a therapist – but you’re a part of us. Of me and Hardison – we are a unit.”
“You mean I was third wheeling?” Eliot scoffed.
“No,” she said firmly. “There are no labels in the world that we would put onto our ethic, our connection – you were even so scared of letting Vera into it that you kept her hidden for a while!” Parker looked at him with big eyes. “Knowing you – how you intensely you love her – you would have done the same. So don’t hold what she did against her. She’s your wife – your kryptonite even.”
“But,” he stammered, sheepishly. “I don’t know her – I know nothing about her!”
“You’re Eliot Spencer!” she exclaimed. “You’ve weaseled out information from men and women alike whilst either fighting or dating them – surely trying to woo your wife wouldn’t be harder?! We all love her—”
“Evidently because you wanted to taser me.”
“Yeah!” Parker said, smiling now – it was almost like she was speaking with her Eliot now. “I still might to see if it’s the gateway to your memories.”
“What – no!”
“Anyway,” she said, slapping him in the face and he looked at her bewildered. “Smarten yourself up – Vera has been fighting Sophie tooth and nail to get to try and trigger your memories by herself. She’s on a deadline and only has one week of trying left – she left the kids with her ex-husband and only sees them on the weekends! So man up and try!”
Something in his heart sank – ex-husband? Only seeing her kids on the weekends?
Maybe they hadn’t been as long married as he thought they had been. Maybe they had been friends before when she was with her husband and had kids with him.
Parker disappeared – the taser he had taken gone too – and left Eliot alone even more conflicted than before.
That night he began having weird dreams – which he fully blamed on Hardison and all his multiverse and multiple timelines movies.
In one dream Vera looked like a hippie straight from the seventies – twirling to show off her long ginger hair. In another she looked like a librarian and they were at a carnival showing off each their individual game skills.
He dreamed of her dancing in a club in a short sparkly dress.
And then she was a forties pinup.
So many iterations of Vera, and his head began to hurt all throughout the night.
The last dream he had was her with long bright red hair and he had woken up in a sweat, sitting up straight, because of a gunshot. He still wasn’t sure whether it had been in his dream or not.
For the rest of the day he just moped around, feeling increasingly anguished that he had experienced a kiss like no other and he was no longer near the person who he kissed. He lurked around headquarters, avoiding his team where he could—he had no appetite to try their method of triggering memories by springing things onto him.
By mid afternoon he knew what he had to do and he found Parker mapping out a building on the screen in the bar.
“Fine,” he said by a way of greeting, and Parker perked up.
“I get to use the taser on you?”
“What?” He jerked, swallowing his next words and instead said. “No – take me to Vera. I’ll… I’ll try.”
Which was how he learned that Vera’s ex-husband had a place nearby headquarters and he reluctantly knocked on the door of the triplex. A tall man with brown hair appeared in the doorway and the shouting of kids was heard in the background. Eliot’s heart was beating loudly and he forced himself to stay calm.
“Oh shit,” the tall man said, seizing Eliot up. So he knew the situation and Eliot took him in with absolute dismay. This was the man that married his guardian angel first? Had children with her? He wanted to break his bones.
“Is my wife here?” he grunted possessively and, to his surprise, the man rolled his eyes.
“Vera!” he yelled and Eliot wanted to choke his throat for saying her name like that. Not a second later Vera appeared next to him, looking at Eliot with big shocked eyes.
“Can we talk?” he asked her with a low voice, actually letting out a low growl when Vera gently touched her ex-husband’s chest. She nudged her head inside and the man seemed reluctant to leave them alone together. Was he using Eliot’s memory loss to get her back? He was going to drop him in Colombia if that was the case – he knew a guy. Or at least he hoped he still did.
“Please, Jake,” she said softly and Eliot added the name ‘Jake’ to his little blacklist.
“Fine,” Jake said, calling inside, “Girls – get ready for dinner!”
Finally he was alone with Vera again, even though he was the one that forced them to go to Headquarters in the first place. He put his hands in his pockets, itching to pull her close but knowing it wasn’t the right time.
“You okay?” she asked, and somehow Eliot found himself telling her what he had been keeping from his teammates.
“Headaches,” he murmured.
Immediately there was worry in her eyes and she stepped forward to inspect him. She cupped his face to turn his head to show her his almost healed gash – his scalp itchy from where his hair was growing back. But it didn’t really matter, because her touching him was all the balm he heeded. The comfort it brought him told him that his proposal was the best path to take.
“Come back to the farm,” he requested quietly and Vera’s breath hitched, her hands still on him.
“Eliot—”
“Please? I know about Sophie’s deadline – let’s stick it out, let’s try.” He knew he was pleading, but he couldn’t help it – he needed her. “Just you and me. If nothing improves – well, at least we’ll know.”
She swallowed. “Deadline is Friday,” she whispered. “I’ve – I’ve got to stay with the girls this weekend – I’ve barely been there—”
Eliot reached up from his pockets, taking her hands in his. “Then pick me up tomorrow as usual, and we’ll have until Friday.”
So they agreed, and Eliot spent the whole weekend twiddling his thumbs and counting down the minutes until Vera would come in her car. That night again he dreamed of a multiverse version of Vera – this time she was an adventurer; with long blonde hair and a beige playsuit. It changed into her pointing a gun at him dressed in the tiniest dress imaginable, shooting him with a wink and a smirk.
He had stayed awake after that dream, wondering how they met in this timeline – wondering how she met her ex-husband.
On their drive back to the farm on Sunday night, Eliot tried to catch her gaze when he lowered the window, but Vera just sucked in her lips and kept her eyes on the road. He was going to have to work hard to break this tension.
Which started at looking at the state he had left the farm in: books scattered on the floor from the fake bookcase, the door to the office slash Vera’s room off its hinges and in general the loaded energy that cloaked the space where they shared (to Eliot) their first kiss.
Vera chewed the inside of her cheek, picking up some of the books to tidy them.
“Why do we have so many books?” Eliot asked. At first the amount of books seemed normal, but thinking about the crammed bookshelves in the office it was turning quite excessive.
With a soft quirk of her lips, Vera just looked at him. “You tell me.”
She was going to be difficult to weasel information out, Eliot noted. So he helped picking up the books, intermittently checking if they all had something in common – but there was no pattern. It went from medical journals to literature to children’s books. The authors were not linked either – nor were the publishers.
Another agonizing headache hit him and Vera was with him as soon as he groaned. She was suddenly overlapped with a version of her with short platinum hair and a NYU sweatshirt.
“Let’s lay down,” Vera suggested – the actual Vera in front of him. “It’s getting late anyway.” And she guided him to his – no – their bedroom. He sighed in relief when his head hit the familiar pillow and enjoyed Vera ensuring his comfort.
“You like taking care of me,” Eliot stated, and because he didn’t ask it like he was fishing – Vera gave him a small nod. He hoped she would tell him more but she slowly made her way out of the room and his heart thumped at being separated from her. “No,” he said. “Stay here.”
“Eliot,” she sighed – but he knew there was a hint of longing in her voice.
“The bed is yours too, and it’s big enough. I have been committed to sleeping on this side only.” He gestured to his side of the bed.
For a minute she debated internally – the only good sleep she had the last two months was when she slept in the bed with him a week ago.
So she agreed, and Eliot let out a breath he was holding. She muttered she was just going to get ready, grabbing her bag and Eliot used the time she was in the en-suite bathroom to change into pajama bottoms himself.
Vera tiptoed out of the bathroom in an oversized buttoned shirt – her legs long and bare and he couldn’t help but stare at them. As quick as she could she dove under the blankets and soon enough they were both lying in the bed – both staring at the ceiling.
Eliot tried to rationalize that they they had shared this bed before, but now that he knew what her lips tasted like, it made the air in the room thick.
Knowing he was being ridiculous he willed himself to find sleep but was unable to.
Vera, on the contrary, just clutched onto a pillow and promptly dozed off. Her soft snores filled the room, and he couldn’t blame her for sleeping instantly after sleeping on the floor and – he gulped – at her ex-husband’s.
He turned to his side to gaze at her – a slight sliver of light through the curtain partially illuminating her face. A frown etched between her brows and on pure instinct, he reached out and stroked his thumb over it. Immediately a soft smile appeared, Eliot’s breath hitching but she stayed asleep – her arm inching towards him and eventually resting on his chest.
His heart beat violently against her hand and it was the connection between them that finally made him fall asleep.
The next morning, after a sleep she had been needing for weeks, Vera woke up in the bed alone. Her hand was on his side of the bed, cold to the touch, and she looked around in a panic.
“Eliot?” she called, but it was her nose that revealed to her where he had gone. For the past weeks he had been home, Vera had cooked – under the guise that she had been hired to do so as he wasn’t allowed to keep weight on his leg for too long. This morning, though, as she walked into the living kitchen – she was met with one of her favorite sights.
With a towel over his shoulder, he was expertly flipping pancakes at the stove and tossed one onto a plate as their eyes locked.
“Good morning,” he murmured and she approached her stool at the breakfast bar – where the plate was waiting for her already.
“You made breakfast,” she said warmly.
“I followed my instincts,” he said. “Though my instinct told me to make quite a lot more than for two people.” With his spatula he gestured to the tower of pancakes – he definitely made enough for a family of four, but Vera kept her lips tight.
Eliot noticed, so he continued. “I want to make a deal with you.”
She perked up mid bite, relishing in finally having something her husband made after two months of barely getting by. “What kind of deal?”
“We have until Friday,” he reminded her. “You won’t act like my nurse – this is our home as far as I am aware, please just do your own thing.”
“But—”
“Let me finish,” he said, holding up the spatula again. “I will try anything you want that you reckon will help get my memories back.”
“And what do you want in return?” Vera asked, stabbing her pancake with her fork and eyeing him dangerously. There was a palpable tension – a remnant from their fight and kiss from Thursday waiting to explode again. For a second Eliot was tempted to change what he was about to say, but in the end he stuck to his plan.
“I get to ask questions.”
Immediately Vera protested, “Dr Paul—”
“You won’t have to answer them,” he promised. “I just need to get some thoughts out in the open.” All he really needed was to understand her tell. He would learn about their relationship soon enough.
“Okay,” Vera finally said after considering and Eliot immediately kicked off.
“How did we meet?”
“You tell me.”
“Did we meet in New Orleans?”
“You tell me.”
And thus their sparring began. It wasn’t his preferred sparring – he would have loved to learn how she fought – but for now he settled on catching her off guard with questions. She would be reading on the couch – damn this woman read a lot – and he’d ask her:
“Did we buy this farm together?” Sophie had said he had been living her for fifteen years – he could narrow it down.
“You tell me,” she would say, twirling a lock of hair around her fingers.
Later they were having coffee on the porch.
“Were you a mark?”
“You tell me.”
In the evening they were putting away the dishes.
“Did we recruit you for International?”
“You tell me.”
In bed, Vera had reinstated her personal belongings on her nightstand – which of course included a book.
“Did we get married in New Orleans?” he asked.
Finally there was a longer silence and Eliot held his breath, before she grinned widely and said, “You tell me.”
So they continued.
He could tell Vera was getting more and more comfortable around him – which was what he wanted: to catch her off guard. Initially he wanted to catch her off guard with a question, but as time passed he also wanted her to be off guard in showing him affection. He craved her touch, her laugh – her calling him babe.
Instinct told him he had a pet name for her, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Sweetheart?” he tried, and to his surprise she actually shook her head whilst laughing. An answer, he thought – finally. And he tried another one.
“Darling?”
Being around her with the knowledge that she was his wife created a tension Eliot could cut with a knife. It wasn’t a hostile tension – it was a loaded sexual one.
The third time he woke next to her, he noticed Vera had tossed and turned throughout the night because a few buttons of her shirt had become undone and the glorious skin of her chest was visible. He swallowed, spotting the slightest line of her nipple and feeling his cock getting heavier than his usual morning wood. His hand itched to slide under the fabric of her shirt and feel the softness of her breast. There was nothing more he wanted than to wake her by kissing down her breastbone, opening her shirt further and further until he could bury his face between her legs.
He let out a groan at the thought and Vera’s eyes opened suddenly.
“You okay?” she asked as a reflex, sitting up and not realizing her breasts were on full display. He struggled taking his eyes off them, and forced himself to limp to the bathroom to take a cold shower.
In the end it was the simplest action that broke the tension.
It had seemed Vera had finally resettled back fully into her home and she was sitting on the couch with her laptop on, typing vicariously as she was very behind on her freelancing. Eliot handed her a glass of water as she had barely moved.
“Hmm?” she acknowledged, her eyes glued to the screen as she accepted it, blindly putting it on the side table. For a second she just turned her head to him and absentmindedly said. “Thanks, babe.”
On pure instinct he leaned over with a smile and they shared the softest peck of their lips.
Both of them froze at the same time as they parted, inhaling deeply, and without further thought – or maybe a little – they crashed their mouths together. Vera’s laptop tumbled onto the floor as she sat up to wrap her arms around his neck and Eliot grabbed her by the waist to drag her over the back of the couch.
His mind was reeling: Finally – finally – finally. He wanted to pick her up and walk them to the bedroom, but his leg protested. Clenching his jaw through the pain, he still attempted it and every time Vera pulled away to ask if he was okay, he cut her short with another kiss.
“El – hmm – Eliot—” she tried, but he was insistent, letting her feet back on the floor to walk her backwards to the bedroom. Right in the doorway, Vera grabbed his wrist with such strength that his eyes bulged a bit looking at her. Oh he was itching to spar with her – she must be a magnificent fighter.
But that would have to wait because all he wanted now was her squirming at his fingertips.
“Vera,” he said hoarsely. “I – I cannot find the words how badly I want – how badly I need… you.”
She looked him up and down, her eyes glancing over his injured leg that he was trying to keep under control. The one thing he couldn’t control, however, was the thick outline of his cock in the sweatpants he was wearing.
“Please,” he begged, his mouth dry as he grew even harder with her watching him. “I can handle the pain – just please—”
Rolling her eyes, she sighed, “Always the martyr.” She kept hold of his wrist and his heart was positively vibrating as she led him to the bed, but got disappointed as she forced him to lie down and lift his leg. He knew he was going to have to respect her change of mind and groaned, covering his face with his hands. But then he heard the rustling of clothes and his head snapped up to find Vera undressing herself. She had an intense look on her face, her jaw set and a fire in her eyes.
“I don’t mind doing the work and be on top,” she said with a low voice and Eliot froze, a stab of pain in his head and an image overlapped of Vera in a lacy lingerie set. He let out a low hum, willing himself out of the multiverse overlaps, and sat up to yank own shirt over his head. Once he shook his hair free, he gaped at Vera in her bra and panties – and the chain with his wedding ring still around her neck, which she took off next.
Then his eyes rested on the scar near her waist. He didn’t know why but he felt like he had been responsible for it and she followed his gaze, shaking her head.
“It didn’t kill me,” she then said, walking up to him and he scooted, moving his legs over the edge of the bed. She stepped in between them, taking his hands and putting them on her waist – the warm skin feeling like home. He thumbed the scar.
“Do you expect me to remember?” he asked, but she shook her head.
“I don’t expect anything,” she said back, letting him kiss the soft skin of her belly. “If anything I am glad you’re really – really – into me.” Her leg grazed his hard on.
“I’ve been obsessed with you the second I saw you,” he said truthfully, looking up at her as she combed through his hair.
“Since I walked into the bar?” she said with a chuckle and he shook his head.
“You were the first thing I saw when I woke – just briefly,” he explained. “You were reading next to my bed.” One hand roamed up to cup one of her breasts and she gasped, but he continued, “You’re always reading… why?” His other hand sneaked to the clasp of her bra and snapped it open. “Do you review books?”
She let the bra slide off her arms, saying, “You tell me.”
He growled, pulling her closer and kissing the underside of her breasts. “Do you write books?”
“You tell – ah!”
Tweaking one nipple, he sucked on the other just as she was talking. He teased her, his thumbs hooking the sides of her panties and rolling it down.
“When did we meet? When did we marry?” he tried again, cupping the mound with soft blonde hair between her legs with his hand and let out an unintelligible sound at feeling the wetness. “Tell me.”
“You know the answer,” she panted, tapping his forehead. “Somewhere deep down.”
In frustration he growled and got up too sudden; his leg protesting instantly and he keeled back onto the bed.
“Babe?” Vera gasped, climbing on top of him. “You okay?”
Unintentionally he bucked up his hips and she let out a soft gasp. He looked up at her – the pain in his leg suppressed – and shuddered at her experimentally grinding against his still covered cock.
“I told you I don’t mind being on top and doing the work,” she purred, but Eliot wanted to savor this moment for as long as he could.
He ignored his throbbing hard on, grabbed her by the hips and said with a hoarse voice, “Sit on my face.”
Notes:
*finger guns*
Chapter 5
Notes:
Yeah this is like 50/50 smut and angst
Chapter Text
Vera knew they should slow down, that they were getting carried away, but the way Eliot was looking at her – like a starved man for whom she was his only reprieve – how was she to resist?
The way he touched her, pleaded her – she saw the soft youth of her husband.
He needed this.
So did she.
His hands were holding her hips so firmly that she couldn’t continue teasing him by grinding down. He would not yield until she answered his request and she jerked her head to the headboard.
“Let me hold onto something at least,” she said, panting softly. Eliot needn’t be told twice and she rolled off him as he moved. He was vibrating with anticipation for her to take her seat.
Eliot saw one final glimpse of Vera prowling towards him, gripping the headboard firmly, before he got to hold on to her thighs for dear life as she lowered down on him and he licked a wide stripe across her pussy.
Vera gasped, feeling weeks of worry and stress disperse from her body as she rode down on his eager tongue.
His hips bucked up into the air, looking for friction. He was so turned on and the thing that turned him on even more was the trust she had; the comfort. To her this was not new and he hummed low, pleased with himself that he kept his wife satisfied. She was letting out soft noises and mewls, but he wanted her to moan, so he upped his effort and sucked on her clit.
Her body twitched, shuddering with pleasure and she increased the speed which she rode down with and stilled when she reached a glorious peak – coming on his face.
As she came down from her orgasm, she began to move away much to Eliot’s dismay – until she simply turned, presenting herself from behind. Her mouth salivated at seeing the thick outline of his cock – a wet spot seeping through his sweatpants.
A choked noise left his throat as she freed his raging hard on, stroking him with intend and teasing the tip with her tongue like she knew exactly how to make him become undone.
“Fuck,” he swore and her pussy was glistening in front of him. Two could play this game, he thought, and grabbed with one hand her thigh and with the other he plunged his fingers deep into her pink folds. She moaned around his cock and only seemed encouraged to up her efforts.
It was like they continued their sparring again; both of them trying to get the upper hand and Eliot was losing. He started to beg.
“Vera—” he gasped. “I – please – I want you—”
With a pop she released his cock, and sat up – teasing his face with her wet pussy again before carefully moving off him. Eliot was gaping at her, his eyes roaming her flushed red body. A goddess, he decided, one that needed worshiping.
His sweatpants were soon on the floor together with his boxers and she nudged for him to sit up.
The back of Eliot’s head thunk against the headboard as she straddled him but he didn’t care. The fully blown pupils on Vera made him willing to endure any pain – any torture – as long as she kept touching him like she was. Her hand gave his cock a few strokes and he let out a shuddering sigh, before she guided him into the overheated depths of her core.
She sat down on his lap, holding onto his shoulders, and both moaned when she began to ride him.
It felt like an intimacy like no other. Vera resting her forehead against his and him grabbing and guiding her hips, slamming her down and pulling her up.
They were equal – they were matched.
Eliot was addicted to it.
Addicted to her.
The hard nubs of her nipples grazed against his chest and he bent down to take one into his mouth, Vera throwing her head back and gasping.
How he wasted three weeks by not doing this, he didn’t know – he should have thrown her over his shoulder the second she walked into the bar and claim this would be the only way for him to get his memories back.
Their lips crashed into another kiss.
Eliot’s hands grabbed her waist and automatically began to thumb the scar. How did she get it? Was that how they met?
He envisioned him heroically carrying her out from a job gone bad – would they have connected after? Would he have broken up her marriage?
The thought of another man with his wife aggravated him so much that he began to thrust up faster.
Vera let go of his shoulders to lean back and hold onto his thighs. “I forgot you don’t like giving up control before,” she murmured, holding herself up so only the tip of his cock was inside her.
“Vera…” he said in a low threatening voice, but he filed away the information nevertheless. Because when had he given up control? Now would be a good place to start if he wanted to come – which he did. Badly.
He let go of her, stopped thrusting up and just sank into the mattress. With a nod he told her – I’m all yours.
And Vera took him with a devilish grin.
Her movements became frantic, moans and whimpers echoing around the room. Carefully and tenderly he reached to caress the soft protruding part of her belly, his love for it unparalleled, before moving down and rubbing her clit.
He surged forward, swallowing her moans by kissing her messily until she suddenly stilled, coming again. It only took a few more thrusts before he came too, feeling euphoric and whole.
Heavy breathing mixed with soft smacks from their kisses filled the air and Eliot lifted her to let his cock slip out. Too sated to complain when she rolled off him, they both turned to stare at the ceiling as they basked in the afterglow.
Still panting, Eliot’s stomach contracted in and out with each ragged breath. He had always loved sex – loved conversations turning into dates turning into sexual encounters and then into people he knew.
But it had never felt like this before.
This deep connection had always been missing, and though in his head he only had known the woman next to him for almost four weeks – he felt like he had known her a lifetime.
If only he could remember it.
He wanted to remember it.
Why couldn’t he?
“What’s causing the frown?” Vera asked softly and goosebumps spread over his naked body at the question. He thought about when he asked her that in the car two weeks ago and she had almost driven them off the road.
He jerked to look at her. “That’s a thing,” he said hoarsely. “We ask each other that.”
Her breath hitched a bit, and again because he stated it and not asked like a question – she didn’t deny it.
“You—” she didn’t dare to ask, and Eliot shook his head, feeling her disappointment.
“My body has memory – it’s not my brain but my body remembering you. My hand—” he held up his left, still lacking a wedding ring. “It always felt wrong ever since I woke up.”
Her hand reached up and intertwined with his, and he pulled it down to rest it against his chest.
He closed his eyes briefly, not even fighting falling asleep, and heard the soft whispering of Vera telling him she loved him before he succumbed to the darkness. He dreamed of a new timeline version of her where she was wearing a Christmas jumper and leggings, baking cookies.
The next day it was like the floodgates had opened because Eliot could not have enough of Vera.
Finally he got to wake her by kissing the very inviting spot where her jaw met her throat and she let out the most delicious of noises.
“Eliot,” she said sleepily as he kissed down her throat. “Hmm—”
“Yes?”
“We shouldn’t—” His hand was already rubbing her clit and she whimpered.
“We should,” Eliot murmured.
“I’m starving—” she said with a gasp.
“Me too,” he said. “But for something other than food.”
Rolling her eyes, Vera felt like they were back at the first time they had actually got to spend time together alone – without imminent danger. Being snowed in in a cabin in upstate New York for Christmas was a ‘clothes optional’ kind of holiday.
She remembered the urges – the freedom. He was experiencing that for the first time with her again, but all she wanted was to try and trigger his memory. The sex had not done so – but if his body remembers, maybe they needed to try that route. The non-sex route.
That aside, Vera didn’t really have a way of convincing this young man in her husband’s body to stop – and who was she to say no to an orgasm for breakfast?
It wasn’t until late that Wednesday morning that Vera forced Eliot to put his libido away.
“We need to go to Paul’s,” she said, but Eliot had his hands all over her.
“Hmm,” he hummed. “Or we just call him – brain bad, body…” He nudged his pelvis against her. “… very good.”
“You’re incorrigible,” she said and managed to get him into the car with the promise he could ask more questions; which she wouldn’t answer.
“Where in the Netherlands are you from?”
“You tell me.”
“Is this your natural hair color?”
She had frowned at that one, wondering where he got the urge to ask that from. At Dr Paul’s, Eliot had predicted his diagnosis right. She had stayed behind for a minute before joining him in the car and he asked why.
“To see if he reckons Sophie’s plan will help,” she muttered, not seeing a reason to keep medical recommendations from him. Eliot’s heart began to beat fast however.
“Sophie’s plan?” he squeaked.
“Hm?” Vera began to drive. “Oh yes, um – Sophie’s deadline? If—” she swallowed, “if you don’t show improvement by Friday, Sophie intends to take you to important places. Boston first.”
Nose flaring, Eliot asked, “But you’re coming with me? Right?”
She sucked in her lips before shaking her head.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“I just can’t.”
He felt the earth dissolve underneath his feet. Of the four weeks he wasted three, and now he was going to be separated from her in two days. So he argued with her all the way back to the farm, Vera’s lips becoming thinner and thinner with each argument.
Back home, he offered to make dinner but continued asking questions.
“Is this because of your ex-husband?” he asked grumpily and Vera looked at him startled.
Confused she asked, “You mean Jake?”
Jake, he thought and growled. “I assume you can’t come with me because of your kids,” he grunted, aggressively chopping up vegetables. “But if you have shared custody, surely you can come to some kind of agreement for another few weeks—”
He looked up, Vera staring at him with her mouth ajar. She swallowed. “My ex-husband… my kids…”
Dots were connecting in her head and her breath hitched at wondering how it could have escalated like this.
He turned away to continue prepping when he heard massive crash behind him. Snapping back around, he looked for the source and found Vera hacking at the fake bookcase with the baseball bat.
“What the hell—what are you doing?!” he yelled, running towards her.
“I—” bang, “need—” bang, “you—” bang, “to see—”
The wood collapsed and the rest of the hallway became accessible in a plume of dust. Vera put down the bat and let out a hiccuping sob before turning her back to it, covering her face with her hands.
“Vera,” Eliot tried but she shook her head. She knew he would be too curious and wouldn’t be able to resist learning why she and the team had blocked off part of the farm. And she was right.
With dread he stepped over the wood, grabbing the first thing that caught his eye – one of the picture frames.
It contained a picture of Vera with two small girls – one blonde looked who like her, and one brunette who looked like…
His heart was hammering in his chest, his brain refusing to answer.
He grabbed another frame – a picture of a wedding. Their wedding.
Vera looked beautiful, glowing even, and very pregnant. Eliot was holding a little girl with blonde hair and he was smiling so broadly he barely recognized himself.
The picture was taken at headquarters, and it dawned on him that his team had hoped he would remember his own wedding by spending time there.
Swallowing, he tried to rationalize it – it could mean nothing. It could mean she had her kids with Jake and something happened for her to fall in love with him. Of course he would marry her and be a stepdad for her kids – he would do anything for her.
With his heart beating almost in overdrive, he reached to open one of the doors and stepped into a green bedroom. A bedroom for a little girl.
Above her bed in big sparkly letters it said ‘ALICE’ and the room looked well lived in. Something colorful on the wall drew his attention and between the painted trees, a drawing was hanging by some push pins – it was a kids drawing of stick figures. There was a woman with bright yellow hair and holding a book – obviously Vera – that had ‘Mommy’ under it. Next to her was a man with a brown ponytail – which could only be him – that said ‘Daddy’. He swallowed, but his throat was dry and it felt like he was trying to push razors down.
They were drawn to hold hands – and Vera was holding hands with a girl that said ‘Emma’ and Eliot was holding hands with a smaller girl that said ‘Me’.
More stick figures in the distance said ‘Uncle Alec’, ‘Aunt Sofie’, ‘Aunt Parker’ and then – ‘Uncle Jake’.
Vera’s ex-husband.
Uncle. Not dad.
He still refused to connect the dots.
Staggering back into the hallway, Vera was no longer there, so he checked out one of the other doors, which was a yellow bedroom.
There above a bed it said ‘Emma’ in the same sparkly letters, and the room was filled with trophies of various fighting sports.
He picked up a frame with a picture of a little girl holding up a medal – she looked just like Vera. Apart from the eyes.
And he knew Jake did not have blue eyes.
Clenching his jaw he spotted another frame – this time with a birth certificate, very clearly stating her name was Emma Spencer, born in 2022.
With his name as the father.
His head began to hurt, the realization of it all trying to burst to the forefront. He had kids – kids with Vera.
And he had forgotten them.
He found Vera huddled on the porch couch, hugging her knees against her chest and making herself as small as possible.
She looked at him with big scared eyes – afraid he would burst out in anger again like he had done when he realized she had been lying about their relationship.
But Eliot felt strangely calm, and wanted to wrap her up against him to reassure her that he wasn’t angry.
He took a deep breath before saying, “We have two girls.”
“I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “Myself and the team just couldn’t figure out the best way of letting you know and—” She hiccuped another sob. “I had hoped that every time you tried to get through the bookcase it would hit you—”
“But it didn’t,” he finished her sentence, and added regretfully, “It still hasn’t.”
It was insane for him to think that he brought children into this world – that he had been worthy of being a dad. He felt like he was staring at another man’s life – a different timeline.
He sat down next to her, resting his hand on her knee. “I understand,” he said, and she looked at him still with those big scared eyes. “You were protecting them. I would have done the same.”
Vera clenched her jaw a little bit, still not relaxing. “School’s out for summer next week, they haven’t been home for almost a month. I can’t let them spend the summer away from their home.”
So he would have to go. Go with Sophie and the team until he got his memories back. If he ever would.
“Tell me about them,” he said.
“Eliot…” she said with that familiar undertone, but he looked at her pleading.
“Please, I just want to know how they are as people. As… our kids…”
She took a deep breath and finally spoke, “Emma is our oldest – she’s turning thirteen in a few weeks. She – " Vera let out a huff. “—she’s just like you. Can’t wait to headbutt with her once puberty is full force.”
Eliot smiled, thinking of all the trophies in her bedroom. Vera continued,
“Alice is our little princess. She’s ridiculously smart. Sophie would say she’s the reincarnation of Nate – just as clever, but with a much more loving dad.” Finally Vera had begun to relax and scooted against Eliot. “She’ll run the family business one day, I’m sure.”
“They sound like amazing kids,” he murmured and Vera looked at him.
“They’re amazing, because of their amazing dad,” she whispered and Eliot swallowed loudly, willing away tears.
“Can I meet them?” he asked before thinking it through.
At this Vera stiffened, sitting up straight and pulling away from him. He already knew the answer but his heart broke nonetheless when she said. “I don’t think I can bear the thought of them seeing you, and you not knowing who they are.”
And Eliot knew it was because he had done just so when meeting her again.
“I hurt you,” he murmured. “By doing that to you.”
She intertwined their hands. “I’m a very strong woman, I had anticipated it,” she insisted. “But I’ve got to protect our children. They’re our life, Eliot. And Sophie was right to give me – us – a deadline.”
He knew she was right, but he didn’t like it one bit.
“So we just have tomorrow?”
Vera nodded and curled up against him, leaving Eliot to brew on what he could possibly do to get his memories back before he was going to get separated from her.
Chapter 6
Notes:
I apologize for the rollercoaster that is this chapter
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
On Thursday morning, Eliot slipped out of the bed early, leaving Vera asleep on her side of the bed whilst the sun was rising. It was the last day before Vera would be forfeiting her attempt and Eliot would be back at the mercy of his team trying to trigger his memories.
He knew they had tried once he had woken up, but he had been reluctant to let them – in short: he knew he had been a little shit. But now a lot more was dependent on it, so he found himself calling the smartest man he knew – however annoying he was.
“‘Sup,” Hardison said as he picked up, not sounding like had been asleep.
“Can you hack my brain?” Eliot asked without even saying hello.
“Not enough hardware in there, I’m afraid.”
“Dammit Hardison.”
Hardison laughed. “Going to assume you caught a certain love bug from a certain nurse Vera? Just what the doctor prescribed, ain’t it?”
“Don’t talk about my wife like that,” Eliot growled, but Hardison just chuckled again.
“I am besties with your wife, I went into a room of explosives for you because you asked me to get her out—”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Hardison said quickly. “So, back to hacking your brain.”
Eliot sighed. “I know about the deadline, but I don’t want to leave—”
“I gotta be honest man, there’s a pretty good reason why—”
“I know why,” Eliot sneered and Hardison stayed quiet for a few seconds, not wanting to blurt out anything so Eliot said. “I know about Emma and Alice.”
Hardison exhaled loudly. “So you know about my name sake. My legacy—”
“There is no timeline or alternative universe where I would have named my daughter after you, Hardison.”
“Room of explosives, that’s all I’m saying…”
Eliot kept quiet for a moment, his headache throbbing as usual. “I just feel like I accidentally created this perfect life and I am being punished by forgetting it.”
“Listen man,” Hardison said firmly. “I know you, I know how you think about yourself in your head right now. This happening is not a punishment, it’s not the universe telling you that you don’t deserve your life. It only happened, because you – Eliot Spencer – ran after a man in trouble and saved him.”
Looking up at the Louisiana sky where the sun was dawning, Eliot blinked away tears and cleared his throat. “Why are you up at this time anyway?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Definitely not because I never went to sleep and have been playing the Spirit’s Ruse RPG all night.”
“I don’t even know what that means, but it sounds like something for nerds.”
“Age of the geek, baby,” Hardison quipped. “What’s your plan today? Final hail Mary with Vera?”
“I think we’ve both run out of energy,” he confessed. “I feel like I’ve let her down by not remembering.”
Hardison full on scoffed at that. “Brother, you could not do anything wrong in that woman’s eyes – and neither could she to you. Listen, I know everyone is being all touchy not telling you things, but let me tell you one thing about the great romance that is Vera and Eliot aka modern day Guinevere and Lancelot – the second, and I mean the second, this woman was in our lives – you became whole.”
“Parker said I hid her from you guys for a while.”
“Well you were both dumb, and so were we because you had valid reasons, but I digress.”
Chewing the inside of his cheek, Eliot murmured, “You sure you can’t hack my brain?”
“No can do – not enough hardware, or software even,” he repeated. “Okay, I’m going to tell you something I told you once I realized what was happening between you and little miss damsel in distress.”
At the mention of damsel Eliot’s head hurt and the Vera with bright red hair appeared, a man in a balaclava holding her in a headlock.
“And what was that?” he grunted, willing the vision away.
“Sometimes it just clicks. And I’m sure your memory will click back just the same. Either with Vera, or with us – don’t sell us short. You’re our Eliot, we’re your family.”
Eliot sighed. “I really did name my kid after you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” a beat. “No take backs.”
Vera walked into the living kitchen wearing one of his shirts whilst he was plating up breakfast. The increased amount he was making made a whole lot more sense knowing he was feeding two growing daughters as well.
“Morning,” she murmured and took her spot at the breakfast bar, letting the weight of the silence settle in around them. Today was her last day – her last try. And as much as Eliot now knew about his life, it was a far cry from him having his actual memories back.
“What do you want to do today?” she asked as he tucked into his own plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. She had expected more questions, but she was scared to overload his brain with information after yesterday’s roller coaster. So to her surprise, Eliot just gave her a small smile.
“How about we just act like it’s a normal day and see if anything… clicks.”
“The instinct approach?” she asked, perking up.
“Yes,” he confirmed, pouring them glasses of orange juice. “We’re just Eliot and Vera. And we’ll do whatever comes naturally.” His eyes quickly darted down to her chest as he said it.
She gave him a scandalized look, feeling her cheeks heat up. “Babe.”
Eliot closed his eyes, savoring the pet name. The thumping of his heart filled a bubble of happiness, and suppressed any thinking about tomorrow.
“So what shall we do?” he asked, and Vera turned to look at the mess that was the remnants of the fake bookcase.
“Hate to disappoint, but maybe we should restore our home?”
And so they did. Eliot felt like there was an invisible string tethered between them. Throughout the day he was following her wherever she was around the farm. She refused him further entry to the girls’ bedrooms, aware that there were plenty of pictures of their lives there that would give him information. However his throbbing headache withheld him from wanting to try anyway.
They went out around midday, going around to do errands and picking up groceries.
“We really are a boring married couple,” Eliot remarked after loading up the car with bags of stuff for their girls.
“Yep,” Vera concurred as they took their seats. “Do you like it?”
He thunk his head against the headrest, longingly looking at her as she began to drive off, and answered truthfully, “I love it.”
The bubble of happiness continued to fill up, but his memory refused to click.
Back at the farm, Vera began to tidy so their home was ready again for their daughters. She had told him to start packing things to take to Boston, but he stubbornly stayed by her side, continuing to refuse to think about what was going to happen tomorrow if it didn’t click in the next few hours.
Whilst she was gathering the rest of the books that she had moved out of the way before she had demolished the fake bookcase, Eliot helped stacking them up.
“They can go back into the office,” Vera muttered, pointing at the room with the door that was off its hinges.
A book slipped from the pile, Eliot catching it with one hand, and something drew his attention on one of the pages: a name he had become addicted to.
Copy editor: Guinevere Spencer.
He stared at it, before smiling softly and telling her, “You edit books.”
Looking from his face to the book, she shared the same smile, confirming, “I edit books.”
A laugh barked out of his chest due to the sheer joy he was feeling that he had finally solved the mystery of why his wife was glued to books.
“I could have sworn you were a grifter of some sorts,” he muttered, not believing he married a civilian, but the small quirk of her eyebrow made him doubt that straight away. So he asked, “Are you?”
“Am I what?” she countered, teasingly.
“A grifter.”
“I’m your wife,” she said, making him carry the pile of books to the office. To keep his elated state he checked a few other books, and even the medical journals, to see his wife’s name in it. There he found a medical journal about the drug empfinium. It was a red-lined version where Vera had been adding in further warnings about the drug. Information the original author had not highlighted.
Vera entered the office behind him with even more books, freezing on the spot when she realized what he was reading.
“Please put that away,” she requested softly.
Ignoring her, he asked, “Why do you have so much knowledge on empfinium?”
He knew vaguely about the drug – it had been going around the darker criminal circles. According to the journal it had grown in its dangerous properties and Vera had added awareness it could cause intense nerve damage to a small portion of users.
“Eliot,” Vera said in her tone that told him he was treading dangerous waters. “Please.”
A headache surged up and instead of the usual different timeline Vera, Damien Moreau appeared – tied to a chair. Eliot’s own voice echoed through his mind, “But he wasn’t the one that killed my wife and unborn child – that was you.”
He tried to snap out of it, wondering what kind of sick alternative universe was out there where he got his pregnant wife killed. Soft hands touched him, reminding him that he was in one where his wife was very much alive, and so were his children. He deflated thinking about the fact he had children. Why wouldn’t it click? Why wouldn’t he remember them? Why would only these stupid alternative timelines pop up?
“C’mon,” Vera said. “Let’s have dinner.”
Though Eliot wasn’t hungry, he let her guide him out of the office, where he felt there were even more skeletons hidden than he could imagine.
“You’ve been processing a lot of information since yesterday,” Vera said as she forced him to sit at their dining table. “Dr Paul warned that it could make it worse.”
He picked at the omelet she had quickly whisked up, and looked at her strangely grateful that she was real and breathing. Why did he suddenly associate her with death? Another stab of pain and adventurer Vera overlapped the Vera in the kitchen, getting shot in the shoulder and falling backwards to disappear off… a cliff?
But Vera didn’t have a scar on her shoulder – and he had become very familiar with said shoulder. He felt silly wanting to ask her about all these weird different versions, especially as some seemed to die – so he refrained.
“You want to wind down on the porch?” she asked, smiling and Eliot was glad that his version of Vera seemed to live a very soft life.
“I was thinking of taking a shower,” he said, and Vera nodded approvingly, but he wasn’t done and added, “Wanna join?”
Ever since he had been at the farm, he had enjoyed his large walk in shower. At first he hadn’t been able to wet his injured leg until he got sign off last week from Dr Paul, before then Vera had offered to help but Eliot had been afraid his blatant attraction to her would have made things awkward.
Now, however, knowing she probably spent many times with him in this very shower, he was waiting impatiently under the stream as she undressed.
His hand lazily stroked his cock already and he was biting his lip as more and more skin was revealed. Vera took off her bra, saying, “You’re insatiable.”
He smirked before letting the water run over his head with his eyes closed, baring his throat and let out a happy hum when her lips kissed his Adam’s apple. She kissed all the way up his throat and in his head a vision surged of a different Vera naked in the shower – with bandages clinging onto her just below her chest and she was whispering in his ear that she had to disappear – that she had to die.
Opening his eyes suddenly, he found his Vera happy and safe under the shower stream. She smiled at him, confirming it had just been another timeline and he willed it away.
His hands found her waist with ease and he slotted their naked bodies together. Vera moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down for a dirty open mouthed kiss. Tongues circled each other as the steam billowed around them – one of his hands roaming down her behind and squeezing hard. One of her arms was moving down and the other gripped his hair with her hand.
“You have such a thing for my hair,” he gasped after breaking the kiss.
“And you have a thing for my ass,” she said smugly.
Eliot’s eyes darkened, and he roughly pushed her against the wall, grabbing the wrist belonging to the hand that had been wanting to touch his growing hard on. He took her other wrist too and crossed them above her head. The shower water streamed down her breasts, who began to rise and fall rapidly in anticipation of whatever he was planning on next. He held her wrists up with one hand and let the other roam down her throat, teasing down her chest with one of his fingers until he found the hardened nub of one of her nipples. She squeaked, trying to escape but he held her up firmly – knowing that if he did anything she didn’t like she would tell him to stop.
“I have a thing for this,” he said in a dangerously low voice, pulling the now even harder nub. Vera gasped. His hand moved lower, tickling the softness of her belly and moving to trace the perfect line that went from her hip-dip to the mount of soft hair. “And I have a thing for this.”
“Eliot—”
He crowded in on her, his breath warm on her ear as he whispered, “I have a thing for all of you, but mostly I have a thing for these—” he let his fingers slip between her slick folds and she let out a whimper. “—noises that you make.” He nipped at her earlobe and began to edge her so close to an orgasm that she desperately let out a sob when he moved his hand away before she could come.
Immediately he returned his hand and made her chase one again, swallowing her protests with his mouth when he pulled away again.
“You’re so mean,” she panted and Eliot gave her a grin not even the devil could replicate.
“I believe the words your looking for are ‘Please, Eliot – let me come.’,” he murmured and she gave him such an angry look that he could only find her more beautiful, so he said. “I’ll make you a deal. You can come now, and we actually shower and go watch whatever stupid film I have not yet seen – or—” and he moved his free hand and gently held onto her waist. “—we actually shower now, I keep teasing you – and then I worship your body on the bed and make you come as often you have in you tonight.” He pressed his hard cock against her pussy. “You can guess which one I favor.”
He let go of her wrists and Vera seemed to weigh her options, before saying, “Fine.”
Smirking, he moved to kiss her but hovered right in front of her lips, breathing against them, “Fine, what?”
She rolled her eyes and he immediately pressed her against the wall again, trapping her.
“Fine, what?” he asked again with a low growl.
His knee nudged her legs apart and his thigh rubbed against her pussy.
“Oh! Ah – the – ah – the latter,” she whimpered, riding down involuntarily. “Please.”
Satisfied with that answer, Eliot pulled back and looked at the vast array of shampoos – it had grown since Vera had rejoined him in the bedroom. “Now which one of these make your hair smell so fucking good?”
This man was going to be the death of her, Vera decided.
It had been half an hour since they left the shower. Eliot had made her lie spread eagle on her back on the bed and he was nipping and sucking at any part of her body that looked inviting. She had been chasing the friction of his hand any time he teased her clit and huffed when he moved away again.
At that moment he was giving special attention to her breasts, knowing he was giving her love marks all over, and she let out a frustrated cry when he again put his hand over her clit but didn’t move.
“Should’ve – gone – with – option one,” she panted and she felt Eliot smile against her chest as he took in her nipple into his mouth again.
“But this is so much more fun,” he said, scooting down so he could rest his head on her belly and pretended to take a nap there.
“I am going to rat you out to what’s-his-face at Interpol,” she threatened before even thinking.
“Who?” Eliot asked, teasing his finger over her clit and Vera shuddered. She bit her lip because to this Eliot, Sterling was still the asshole at IYS. “Who?” He slipped a finger between her folds and she bucked under him, moaning and complaining when he withdrew his hand again. “I should’ve adopted this method of information extraction four weeks ago,” he said, giddy, and crawled back up on top of her to be face to face.
There was nothing more in that moment that he could do than to simply enjoy being with her – teasing her, edging her – and as he smiled down at her, the bubble of happiness popped so violently on his heart that he froze.
It felt so sudden, so overwhelming, that he actually clutched his chest and rolled off of her, lying on his back on the bed and breathing heavily. Vera sat up immediately, holding his gaze and there was panic in her eyes as he looked at her.
“Babe?” she asked, voice shrill. “What’s wrong?”
Oh, he thought, swallowing a lump in his throat, realization dawning what this feeling was. The one thing that suddenly clicked – but it didn’t come with his missing memories.
He loved her.
His body remembered loving her – everything he had done had felt so natural.
His mind wanted to love her. He knew it already did, but there was this block – this stupid brain block that was refusing to let it all to click into place. A tear slipped down his temple before he could stop it. The part that wasn’t resigning to him having to leave her was surging to the forefront and took control of his emotions. He couldn’t keep pretending like he was fine – because he registered that was what he had been doing all day. His combat training – his resistance training had unbeknownst to him taken over to soothe the imminent pain lurking in the near future of being separated from her.
She was looking at him with panic in her eyes, but also with hope that this extreme reaction was him getting his memories back. He knew he was breaking her heart when he choked, “I want to remember you.” He breathed heavily. “I don’t want to leave tomorrow, I want to stay and remember you. I don’t know why it won’t click into place.”
Vera remained silent, her hope deflating and not knowing what to say or what to do. The high she had felt from their normal day had faded, and the reality of their current situation had returned with a whiplash.
She felt… tired.
Though she was so happy that Eliot was here with her – she knew he could not stay. Not like this. She needed time – she needed her daughters. Her body and mind were exhausted with carrying them all up the hill. It was like Sophie had predicted that she wouldn’t know when to give up; she just hadn’t expect the wall to hit before the deadline.
She cupped his jaw, gently thumbing his scruff. Her eyes traced every inch of his face, taking in his jaw, his cheeks, his lips – everything.
“What?” he asked with pain in his voice, sensing there was something she wanted to tell him and he needed to hear her voice like a lifeline. Like he could almost hear all the things she must have told him when he was in a coma.
She gave him the softest of looks – a sad look.
“I want you, this you, to know – that you are the love of my life.”
Eliot let out a choked noise. “Vera…”
“And I love this you, future you and past you. No matter what happens next, I will try and find a new way… just not now.” She closed her eyes, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I’m not giving up – I won’t give up, but… I can’t keep going.”
His heart broke. This woman had put her life on hold to try and get her husband back, and he hadn’t been able to do so. He had failed her and his family.
Reaching up, he cupped her jaw as well and stroked away the tear.
“We will find a way,” Eliot vowed with his voice thick.
The bed dipped as she laid back down and encouraged Eliot to mold himself against her. Soon enough he found himself in between her legs again and they exchanged slow and loaded kisses until he sheathed himself inside of her, making actual love for the first time – for Eliot at least – not wanting tomorrow to come.
Notes:
How we feeling out there tonight?
Ha, ha, ha
Yeah
...
I am not feeling good…
Chapter Text
For the short time Eliot slept that night, he dreamed he was on a Ferris Wheel. Each trip around was with a different Vera variant – starting with the platinum blonde one.
She looked… young, Eliot decided. She was smiling broadly, intertwining their hands, and he noticed that neither of them were wearing wedding rings. Once he looked up again, Vera was her fifties pinup variant – red hair styled with curls that she was twirling around her fingers and red lips framing just as broad of a smile.
Still no ring – and he wondered: did he not marry her in the other timelines?
The wheel continued to spin.
Librarian Vera.
Seventies Vera.
A Vera with dark waves and a red dress took his breath away. They weren’t holding hands – a heavy silence between them that was broken by this Vera asking, “Will you settle some day soon? I would like you closer.”
He swallowed, and still noted the lack of ring.
The next trip was with a rather strange looking Vera. Her hair still had the same darkness as the one in the red dress, but her roots were showing as very blonde. She was wearing pastel colors that didn’t suit her very well. There was a sadness between them, with Vera saying, “I can’t believe the wheel is closing – after all of these years!”
What?
Eliot frowned, but then he was suddenly alone.
For a while he was.
Just as he thought he should maybe wake up, Vera was there again – his Vera. Only younger – by maybe fifteen years or so. She was radiant, she was happy – she was presenting him his wedding ring.
After taking a deep breath she said, “Eliot Spencer – I promise in return to protect you—” His mouth was dry as she slipped the ring onto his ring finger. “I do not wish to be apart from you any more – from today until the end.”
Their hands were clasped together and he realized she was just wearing the wedding ring – not the diamond cluster he had seen her wear.
“I declare us married,” she said.
His heart was in his throat – maybe this wasn’t his Vera after all; he had seen their wedding picture – they had a proper wedding at headquarters. Eliot looked at his ring – it was his actual ring, the one he had seen hanging on the chain around Vera’s neck. He felt like he had missed wearing it – like it made him feel whole.
She then said. “You may kiss me.”
But before he could, he woke up in their bed, Vera clinging onto him still fast asleep, and his memories still very much missing. He softly brushed his hand through her hair and took deep breaths to keep his calm. What was he going to do?
Vera stirred, smacking her lips. They only had slept a few hours, making the most of their time together – it reminded her a bit of when they had their frequent Coney Island meet ups. God, she hoped that him visiting Coney Island would trigger his memories back.
She couldn’t believe she was going to be sleeping alone again in their bed. Whilst Eliot had been in a coma, it might have been the thing she had struggled with most.
The first night she had left the clinic, after picking up the girls at Jake’s, she had touched his side of the bed and nearly broke down.
“Mom?” someone from the doorway called and she turned to see both her daughters there, clutching their plushies as they watched her. She straightened up, producing her best encouraging smile and beckoned them inside.
Alice was holding Emma’s hand and they both stumbled into the room, climbing up the enormous bed.
“If I’m going to have to house the whole family and our future dog in this bed, I am getting a big one—” Eliot had said when they were upgrading a few years ago. It was how their gigantic sized mattress ended up taking up most of the space of their bedroom. Yet still Eliot ended up with the least space some nights – all his girls curled up around him. A position Vera now found herself in; Emma on her left and Alice on her right.
“Will daddy be okay?” her youngest asked, and Vera felt a lump form in her throat.
Her oldest immediately said. “Dad’s the strongest man on the planet, he’s going to wake up and kick ass—”
“Emma,” Vera automatically scolded.
“I mean butt.”
Emma adjusted her bunny, which was slowly falling apart after almost thirteen years, and face planted into Vera’s side, definitely trying to hide how much her dad being gone was affecting her.
Deflating, Vera told her daughters, “We just play it day by day, okay?”
The three of them snuggled up, sleeping like that for the first few nights. And now she was snuggled against the man they all missed so much.
“Morning,” he said gruffly, still raking his fingers through her hair. Vera pressed a kiss on his bare chest.
“Hey,” she said softly, and relished when he pulled her even closer – like there was no place safer than right there under the blankets together. But the clock was ticking.
“I should pack some things, shouldn’t I?” Eliot murmured. Neither moved.
It was Vera’s stomach rumbling that kicked them into gear, Vera leaving for the kitchen and Eliot getting dressed, followed by him tossing stuff haphazardly into a duffle bag. There was no thought or finesse – just resignation.
He and Vera had breakfast quietly before Vera said she was going to get ready in their bedroom. Taking the moment to enjoy the final moments in what he had been considering his home now, he wandered around – wondering what it would look like next time he would be back.
Vera, of course, had removed all signs of them as a family, and he wished he could take something with him as a memento. A reminder of her. Something to keep him encouraged to get his memories back.
Barely four weeks, he thought – just four weeks did it take for his wife to make him fall in love with her. He could only imagine how the – what did Hardison call it? – great romance of Vera and Eliot had unfolded over the span of years, decades – or maybe it had been just as instant.
Sighing, Eliot walked outside, taking in the view for the last time. He leaned with his arms on the balustrade that wrapped around the porch, letting the sun warm his face.
Part of him already fantasized the moment his memories would come back and he would have to travel from god knows where to be back with her.
But what if it never came back?
Would he have to try and convince Vera to let him be part of their lives again? Maybe once the girls were older?
The front door behind him creaked open, and Vera approached him, saying softly, only for him to hear, “Hey.”
He didn’t want to turn around, trying to make his time there last as long as he could.
“Where is Sophie taking me again?” he asked, even though he knew – he just wanted to hear her voice say it.
“Boston,” she said. “You guys did lots of jobs there with Nate.”
He swallowed, knowing he had been avoiding the acceptance that the man who seemingly turned his life around was gone.
“Did we meet there?” he asked almost like a habit, and interestingly Vera stayed quiet. It gave him hope that he’d be going somewhere still with a connection to her. He said, “Sophie mentioned New York as well.”
The hitching of her breath told him they had a connection there too and she whispered, “We should get going.”
Though he nodded, he didn’t move. He knew he had to go, and Vera had to be back home on time before her – their – daughters arrived. But he was reluctant, so he turned to look at her over his shoulder and just seeing her took his breath away.
She was magnificent, he thought, and he knew he married the best possible variant.
Quietly he asked, “Can I have my ring?” It had been on his mind ever since his dream, needing this piece of her – of them – with him. The hesitation on her face told him she had wanted this piece of him as well, but she took off the chain anyway, sliding the ring off it and offering it to him. He took it with a shaky hand.
Bouncing the ring in his hand, he enjoyed the weight of it. He thought about how ironic it was that the man from the Coney Island Ferris Wheel, who had given it to him, had told him he wanted Eliot to many more memories with it – and he couldn’t remember any of them.
A beat.
A sharp inhale.
A click.
Eliot stared at the ring in his hand. The headache that had been looming in the background for a week now dispersed as sudden as it had appeared. His head snapped up, looking at the woman in front of him. No, not just a woman – his wife.
“Oh,” he said – barely audible on an exhale, and all the variants of her that had plagued him overlapped the Vera in front of him. All the way back to when she was just a pretty girl in a bank – smiling at him. It was all clicking into place.
He choked, saying, “Oh hon.”
Vera’s eyes widened. For two months had she been longing to hear him call her that. The way he said it made the hairs on her arms stand up straight – the tone of his voice – it – it couldn’t—
“Eliot?” she whispered, catching his gaze and there he was – right there in the crinkle of his eyes, where young Eliot hadn’t quite allowed his happiness to reach yet – she saw her husband.
He crashed into her, wrapping her up in his arms without hesitation, not feeling nearly as close enough as to how he wanted to be. “Oh, hon,” he said again in her ear. “Oh, you brave – brave woman. I don’t deserve you.” He pulled back, scanning her beautiful, but shocked, face.
“I – I’m—” she gasped, overwhelmed and cried into the kiss they shared.
“You’re the strongest—” Eliot said between kisses, “bravest,” kiss, “—smartest woman.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I will lament every day on how much I don’t deserve being surrounded by this many loving people.”
Sobbing, Vera asked, “You’re back? What – how—”
“Coney Island,” he said simply, chuckling and sniffing. The shock on her face grew exponentially.
“What?”
And Eliot laughed.
By pure coincidence they had accidentally recreated Coney Island from when they eloped. The porch had mimicked the pier – with Eliot leaning over the railing and Vera approaching behind him.
“The Ferris Wheel operator – the ring,” he said, still holding it in his fist. “I remember.”
Vera closed her eyes, feeling faint. “This better not be a dream.” Her eyes snapped back open. “Tell me me how we met, tell me anything—”
He huffed, but indulged her. “We met during a bank robbery, you faced your stalker to save me – we got married twice – we have two stunning and ridiculously smart daughters—”
At this she punched his chest, suddenly aggrieved. “How dare you, Eliot Spencer!” she snarled and Eliot lowered his head, accepting her anger. “How dare you scare me like that. Scare us like that. Never do that again.”
“I won’t,” he said – the promise heavy between them. He held up his ring. Vera took it from him and he offered his left hand. Like another puzzle piece into place, he felt whole once she slipped the ring back on his finger. “Oh hon,” he could only keep saying, wrapping his arms around her again. “God, I don’t deserve you.”
He picked her up, ignoring his leg, and carefully carried her inside their home. It was so weird seeing it with his new perspective – like his brain was both Eliots at the same time. He looked at the last remnants of the fake bookcase, shaking his head at the genius that was his wife.
“And you said you never wanted to mastermind again,” he chuckled, putting her down. Suddenly she grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. Her eyes were intense and glassy with tears.
“I will do anything – and I mean anything – for you,” she said fiercely.
And Eliot had no doubt about that. He surged forward to kiss her again, to appreciate her with more than words – to let her know he knew the sacrifices she had made and the anguish she had endured.
“I love you,” he said, breaking the kiss, picking Vera back up and walking them to their bedroom. “So so much.”
She clung onto him, her head hidden in the crook of his neck and she let out quiet sobs. “I was so tired, babe,” she confessed, her voice muffled. “I didn’t want to give up, but—”
“Shh,” he soothed her. “I’m here – you did it. Your plan worked.”
“I do thrive when I have a deadline,” she hiccuped.
He made her sit down onto their bed – their gloriously big bed that he wanted because it could fit every single one of his girls. She looked at him with tears on her cheeks and despair in her voice when she said. “Tell me something more – tell me something only you would know because I swear to god if you are grifting me based on information you found around the house, I will kick your ass—”
“Like you did during our first night together?” Eliot quickly said, kneeling between her legs and his hands rubbing her arms. “I remember throwing you over my shoulder—” he leaned forward, offering a kiss which she accepted. “and I remember this god awful pink shirt—” His hands started to roam the much nicer blouse she was wearing now.
“Don’t you dare Eliot Lancelot,” Vera threatened, remembering how he had torn the pink top without effort that first night in Boston. “You already ruined one of my shirts last week—”
“I will mend that one,” he promised, popping the buttons of this blouse carefully one by one. He pulled it down over her shoulder and let his fingers roam over a scar on her arm as he did.
She shrugged off her shirt completely and cupped Eliot’s jaw, her lower lip wobbling as she said, “I thought I lost you.”
He matched her sadness with longing eyes. “I’m right here,” he said, taking her left hand, kissing the rings there and pushing her to make her lay down. With a thud she fell onto the bed and he joined her on top of her. “I’m right where I belong,” he murmured and kissed his favorite spot on her jaw. He let the weight of his body comfort her – the solid proof that he was real.
Eliot knew there was a lot unsaid – a lot that had to be done, but somehow all he could think about was to show his wife his gratitude – his appreciation.
Hands wandered, and he grazed over the exposed skin of her cleavage. Looking down he saw the marks his ‘young’ self had inflicted with enthusiasm the night before. It felt so weird knowing that he had done that – but also he hadn’t.
He had been there – but also he hadn’t.
“No matter what age I am, I can’t get enough of you, can I?” he said, kissing the exposed skin. “If you had wanted to speed things up, all you had to do that first week is walk into this room in a skimpy outfit, telling me you were my wife and I would devoured you.”
She let out a whimper. “You would’ve had a heart attack.”
“That too.”
Though the walls of this room had seen plenty over the past few days, he felt the need to show his wife that he was back by proving how well he knew her body and her mind.
Pushing himself up, he got off the bed – Vera staring at him with big eyes as she sat up. He pulled his shirt over his head – thankful he didn’t have to leave after all, and kicked off his shoes and socks whilst undoing his belt.
“I want you to know,” he said, stepping out of his jeans. “That I was going to do anything to remember you. I would’ve let Parker taser me if I had to.” She was staring at him with her lips apart and red stained cheeks from crying. In his undershirt and boxers he rejoined her on the bed. Straddling her so he sat in her lap and cradled her beautiful face. “In my head I only knew for a few weeks and I felt physically ill thinking about parting from you. You – you – are my everything. And I will spend every day making up to you that I dared to forget you.” Tenderly he kissed her. Vera’s hands held onto his waist, squeezing slightly before wandering to his behind. Their lips were becoming more and more swollen as they made out and Eliot pulled back with a smirk. “I am appreciative that I got to have a second first kiss with you though.”
Vera slapped his ass. “You got a second first everything.”
He grinned. It was insane how he loved they way they were together – the comfort, the fun – he would never get enough of her.
“I love you,” he said, pecking her on the lips. “Now I promised you a lot of orgasms last night but I got a bit… well you know, so I’m just gonna do that now if that’s all right?”
“Ugh, you’re still incorrigible,” she moaned and he made quick work of removing her bra. The way he undressed her made her grateful that it felt easy – that it felt normal. It hit her like a freight train how much she had craved normality.
Before she knew it she had her hand in his hair as he kissed his way down and buried his face between her legs.
Weeks of worry left her body as he ate her out, loving how he knew exactly what to do unravel her. Her first orgasm hit almost effortless – which Eliot took great pride in, sliding in two fingers between her folds to encourage another one.
“Baaaaabe,” she whined, gripping his hair tightly as she came again. “You’re way too dressed—”
“And you’re way too coherent,” Eliot said as he got up, grinning broadly and shimmying out of his boxers and undershirt in the most ridiculous way. Vera let out a choked giggle. How she had missed her silly carefree husband; young him had been so much more on edge – so much more intense. She had missed his goofy behavior.
Practically pouncing her, Eliot jumped back onto the bed and kissed her languidly. His hand brushed from her cheek, down her neck and pulled her as close into the kiss as possible. She relished in the routine of their love making. They might be a boring old couple but if she had to confess to it: she would not want it any other way.
She loved it.
On cue Eliot spread her legs wider, his hand trailing down her thigh to her clit a final rub – making her shudder all over – before guiding his cock inside.
They both gasped into each other’s mouth before Eliot pushed up to gaze upon his wife’s face. She was smiling and reached up to stroke some of his hair out of his face.
As he moved her breathing began to hitch and his favorite noises filled their bedroom.
“I love you,” he grunted, hoisting up her leg to thrust even deeper. He swallowed her moans with a kiss and let her wrap herself fully around his body with her legs and arms as he kept thrusting. “C’mon, hon,” he encouraged, knowing she had another orgasm in her before he was going to come himself. He tweaked her nipple to tip her over the edge and together they shuddered in each other’s arms, coming undone – but becoming whole.
Eliot stayed on top of her, moving only slightly to let his cock slip out, and once again swallowed a noise she made with a kiss.
“I really want to nap,” she panted, “but I’m scared I’m going to wake up and you either forgot again or this was a dream.”
Soothing her with soft touches, he readjusted their limbs and scooted her to be under the blanket. “I’m right here,” he said softly. “Sleep, hon – I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
With a startle Vera woke again, sitting up straight and looking around disoriented. Eliot was perked up against he headboard, the book from her nightstand in his hand and his reading glasses on his nose.
“What’s our safe phrase?” she immediately asked and Eliot chuckled – his dad chuckle, so that already told her enough but she still wanted to know.
“Coney Island,” he said, “where you once valiantly saved me from a seagull.”
She relaxed, taking in the absolute delicious sight of her husband being cozy.
“Was I out that long?” she said, nodding at the book.
“Nah,” he assured, taking off his glasses and putting the book away. “I just don’t know where my damn phone is. Did it die in the tunnel?”
“Bree has it,” Vera said with a sigh, snuggling into open arms Eliot offered. “They’ve been keeping up your Wordle streak.”
“Oh thank god,” he said in relief, scooting down to get more comfortable.
“How do you feel?” she murmured and he almost groaned at the worry.
“I feel…” He paused and then with the utmost sincerity he said, “Grateful.”
She closed her eyes, happiness simmering through her veins. Happiness Eliot shared basking in when he suddenly winced and said, “Dammit Hardison.”
Vera’s head snapped to him. “Oh I am sooo telling Alec you said his name whilst naked post sex.”
But Eliot didn’t care, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Stupid Hardison and his stupid movies!” Groaning he dropped his head into his hands. “I had been remembering you,” he confessed, his voice muffled. “All of your Coney Island looks, but I thought I was having multiverse visions of variants.”
He peered through his fingers down at Vera, expecting her to be mad or hurt, but instead she was biting her lip to keep herself from bursting into laughter. The angry look he gave her made her break and she laughed heartily. She hadn’t laughed like that in two months.
“Multiverse?!” she giggled.
“Shut up—”
“Variants?!”
“Don’t blame my stupid younger self for not connecting the dots!”
Her laughter died out with a final snort, and then her smile faded slightly. “The natural hair color question,” she murmured, remembering. “You were trying to ask.”
“Yes,” he grumbled, “but then you died in several incarnations so don’t blame me here for thinking I was crazy!” He laid back down, kicking his stupid self in the head and groaning again.
Vera patted his chest soothingly. “There there.”
For a minute they sat in a comfortable silence, knowing they maybe had to start telling people he got his memories back. But then Vera quietly asked, “What’s the last thing you remember? Before the tunnel—” Her voice trailed off, and Eliot swallowed. It was perhaps the darkest hole in his memory. He remembered the weather – sunny, the promise of summer in the air. He remembered thinking about their vacation plans, or their lack of at least. They never had had the chance to go on a summer vacation and he figured that if Zachary proved himself, he could take his girls somewhere nice for a few weeks. Emma was starting High School soon – they were all growing up too fast – and he wanted to make to most of their time.
“I remember realizing Zachery was stuck and I went in. Next thing I opened my eyes and I thought I had died,” he looked at her.,“because an angel was reading by my bedside.”
Eliot traced back how they got from that moment to here: the team telling him what happened, the staying at HQ – Nurse Vera and finding out the truth through the Polaroid – and he gasped.
“Oh hon,” he said, guilt overtaking his body and voice. He sat up again, taking Vera’s hands and she was looking at him in bewilderment. “That night – when I realized you knew me, I grabbed you—”
Vera winced, realizing what was happening. “Oh babe, no—”
“Did I trigger anything?”
“You almost triggered a knee in the balls—”
“Honey,” he insisted. “I am so sorry.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. He had scared her initially after she had entered the farm the night he learned she was his wife. It had reminded her a bit of eleven years ago when Moreau’s intruder had abducted her. Afterwards she had been afraid to come home for weeks – but then again when that happened she had been pregnant and allergic to empfinium which he had threatened her with. The second Eliot had pushed her against the wall, however, she had known he had found her out and she would have to let him realize at his own pace.
“Past you didn’t know,” she assured. “Though he was going to know about my fighting skills had he not let go.”
Eliot stewed on his stupidity for a bit, thinking how Moreau must have had a pretty quiet two months in prison without Eliot arranging the occasional reminder that he messed with the wrong family. Or maybe it had only increased his paranoia — he would have to check with his contacts.
He leaned in for a kiss to apologize and a bell echoed through the farm to indicate someone was driving up. They both stiffened.
“Shit!” Vera cussed, tumbling out of the bed. “The girls!”
Notes:
Really hoped that lived up to expectations <3
Chapter Text
Vera disappeared into their bathroom, probably to assess the rumpled state she was in, but Eliot just reached for his clothes. He heard the car approach as he fastened his jeans, entering the hallway to the living room.
The car stopped and doors slammed.
Eliot’s heart began to beat fast at hearing his daughters squabble with each other. He pulled the vest over his head and shrugged on the shirt over his arms, walking to the front door to the porch where Emma and Alice were making their way up from the car.
At noticing him opening the door, both girls froze – Emma moving to stand protectively in front of her sister, seemingly more aware of what had happened to Eliot.
Jake jumped out of the car, yelling in a panic, “Hey! Uh – hey man – these—”
But Eliot didn’t pay attention to him, he just took in a deep breath and looked from one daughter to the other before smiling. “Well if that isn’t my dragon and princess,” he said gruffly and simultaneously their jaws dropped.
“Daddy!!” Alice yelled, pushing past her sister. She jumped into his open arms, wrapping her own arms around his neck and he felt tears build up in his eyes. “I missed you,” she murmured into his neck.
“I missed you more,” he said back, and looked at Emma who hadn’t moved, but just stared at him with big shocked eyes, just like her mom had done. Jake joined her side.
“Well, I guess this is good news?” he said. “News that could’ve used a head’s up with a phone?” Right at that moment, Vera stumbled onto the porch – looking very much frazzled enough for Jake to connect the dots and he shook his head. “Of course.”
At seeing her mom, Emma finally kicked into gear and ran to join them, hugging Vera – but still looking up at Eliot.
Swallowing, Eliot realized how much both his daughters had grown since the last time he had seen them. He hoisted Alice to one side and held out his hand to Emma to pat her over her blonde hair – just the slightest touch to ensure she was real too.
“Well then,” Jake said, shrugging. “I’ll go share the happy news with the rest of the fam. I’m sure they’ll plan a party straight away.” He sighed, before pointing at Eliot. “I expect a lifetime supply of chili from you.” As he started to walk to the car to leave the family to reunite, Eliot called after him.
“One sec,” he said, putting Alice down with a kiss. “Go put your stuff back inside, okay?” He nudged his head to the door and gave Vera a look that he wanted a moment alone with Jake.
After his girls were back inside, Eliot walked up to Jake and offered him his hand, which he eyed wearily.
“You haven’t forgotten we’re way past that, right?” he said and hugged Eliot instead. “Glad you’re back, man.”
“Thanks for looking after them,” Eliot grunted. They pulled back.
“Oh it was a joint effort – though Hardison did win the best ride to school contest. God damn gold Maserati.” Jake shook his head, really looking at Eliot and comparing to the man who had come knocking at his house. He seemed a lot more relaxed, almost opposite of what he had been last week – Jake knew he had either been jealous or angry. “At least you’re no longer looking at me like you want to murder me.”
Eliot chuckled. “I wasn’t going to murder you.”
“Oh that’s good—”
“Couple of broken bones, maybe,” Eliot said with a shrug.
“There it is,” Jake deadpanned, nodding and making his way to the driver’s seat. “It’s disgusting how much you love each other!”
“I know.”
“I’ll let you know the plans for your party!” Jake yelled with a final beep of his horn, before driving off again.
Once Eliot was inside, his breathing hitched at seeing his girls all at the breakfast bar. Vera had been quietly talking to them, Alice looking at her with a pout and Emma with a frown. The three of them all turned to him, and before a pin could drop – Alice’s floodgates opened.
“D-daddy!” she sobbed, running across the room and body-slamming into him.
“Oof,” he grunted. “Easy there, princess.”
“Did – " sob. “—did mommy tell—” sob. “y-you I am t-top of my class?”
At this Emma let out the loudest sigh, grabbing her phone and heading towards the backyard. “God give me strength,” she muttered.
“Emma!” Vera called after her in a threatening tone, but she was met with the back door slamming. She took a deep breath in, closing her eyes, suddenly aware of how not ready she was to immediately dive back into normal life mere hours after it came crashing back.
But just as she was swaying on her legs, hands found her waist and Eliot kept her upright. He forced her to lean against him and she deflated.
“How about you take your time for a bit, huh?” he murmured. “Maybe a shower, a nap—”
She huffed. “You’re the one who got hit by a tunnel.”
He squeezed her waist. “Not all wounds are physical.”
Then different pair of arms wrapped around her and Alice was trying to hug both her parents at the same time. It was enough for Vera to break, and she raked her hands through Alice’s hair and let Eliot hold her up as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Go,” Eliot encouraged. “Me and princess will prep dinner – how about a pizza party, huh?” He looked down at Alice, who gasped, excitedly.
“But Em—” Vera tried.
“—is just being stubborn,” Eliot soothed. “She gets that from me. Go, hon.”
Reluctantly she made her way towards their bedroom, looking over her shoulder to see Eliot and Alice still hugging and she wasn’t sure how much her heart could take.
With a sigh she crawled back into the bed, extremely glad she was going to sleep there alone by choice and not by force.
They had dinner in the garden, the pizzas easily pleasing the crowd as they all readjusted to normality. Emma was still stiff lipped but Alice was catching him up on everything he had missed.
“And then I had my first laser grid training with Aunt Parker, but I was much better at finding ways around it than through it—”
“Wait—” Eliot said, frowning and shaking his head. “Is Parker teaching you cr—”
“Crime is fun!” Alice said with the widest of smiles – a manic sparkle in her eyes like she had found her calling. “Em was really good at vent training.”
“I enjoyed the solitude,” her sister said melancholy.
Eliot turned to Vera. “I thought we agreed—” Their plan had always been to let them find their own thing that made them tick. Preferably with no law-breaking involved.
“Hey don’t look at me,” Vera said, holding up her hands. “It was either you or them staying with the family—”
“Vent training?” Eliot gaped at her in disbelief.
“It’s in their DNA, babe,” Vera said, who seemed to had fully resigned to the fact. “Harry’s been without a watch for two months now.”
“Tyler has been training with us,” Alice quipped, referencing Sophie’s grandson Tyler Pickford. “He’s terrible at it though.”
“Alice,” Vera scolded. “We talked about being honest but staying kind.”
Alice sucked in her lips. “Sorry mommy.”
Eliot chuckled, looking at Emma who was picking at the final pieces of crust on her plate. “What about—” he tried, but Emma stood up.
“Can I be excused?” she asked and Eliot felt his heart crumble at how she was ignoring him. She continued. “Now that our summer looks less chaotic, I need to make some plans.”
Not waiting for an answer, Emma went back inside and Alice began to stack plates to help clean up. “She’s been grumpy since last week,” she stage whispered to Eliot. “When she got caught kiss—”
“Alice!” Vera said, and immediately Alice ran for the farm, gleeful she got her sister into trouble. Vera took a deep breath, eyeing Eliot who was staring unfocused into the distance. “Oh boy,” she mumbled. “Here we go.”
“Kissing?!” he snapped.
“It’s why I had to go to her school last week – it was nothing—”
“She’s a child—”
“I had my first kiss at thirteen—”
“Who did she kiss?” Eliot felt himself getting red. “Is she talking to them now on the phone?!”
“Babe, please,” Vera tried.
“Kissing!”
“Mind you, we did just that later that day.” She twirled a lock of her hair around her finger and finally Eliot retreated, still plotting how to find out who the hell dared to kiss his daughter. He looked at his wife.
“You had your first kiss at thirteen?” he asked, much calmer.
It was Vera who stared off into the distance now. “Summer holiday in the French Riviera,” she sighed. “I’ll never forget you, Adrien.”
Eliot mentally added this ‘Adrien’ to his little blacklist.
As he got up, he offered his hand to her – not so much to help her get up, but more because he physically needed to be touching her. He pulled her close into a hug – the dust of a heavy day settling.
“I’ve slept more today than in the last two months,” she murmured into the crook of his neck. “And I still want to sleep more.”
“I’m not stopping you if you want to go sleep early,” he said softly. “I’ll need to find out what the family’s plan is anyway, I’m sure they’ve been blowing up your phone. And I’ll get the girls to bed, tidy up – maybe sort the frames to get them back on the wall—”
Vera pulled back, quietly taking in his face with a critical look. “You’re not afraid of sleeping, are you?” she asked.
Eliot closed his eyes, letting out a low growl. “You were going to stop cold reading me.”
“I don’t need to cold read you,” Vera said, giving him a kiss. “Talk to the family, get Alice to bed – don’t even bloody dare thinking about mentioning anything to Emma—” She poked his chest with her phone before handing it to him. “And then join me in bed, please.”
Sucking his teeth, he reluctantly let her go back inside and scrolled through the first initial messages that had been sent after Jake got to HQ. Most of them were happy emojis and exclamation marks.
He took his time telling everyone to calm down and that they would drop by tomorrow, before taking everything from the table back inside and finding Alice reading on the couch.
“How many books did I miss, princess?” he asked, putting things in the dishwasher.
“Twenty-five, but only because mommy made me do actual school work as well,” she said, nonplussed. Eliot walked up to her, ruffling her hair much to her dismay.
“How about you get ready for bed and you give me a review of your top three before sleeping?” It had been their ritual ever since she showcased the same aptitude to books as her mom and she eagerly disappeared into the bare hallway to get ready.
Eliot took in the empty wall where pictures of their story used to hang. How it must have hurt to hide it away to accommodate him, and he took a deep breath. The sliver of light coming from underneath Emma’s door told him she was still awake, but he refrained from invading her space.
Exhausted, and knowing he should go to sleep after tucking Alice in, but his wife had been right – he was afraid of actually sleeping. What if sleep made him forget again? He had briefly called Paul whilst the pizzas were in the oven, and he had been assured he should be in a good place, but still the fear lingered.
All the lights of the bedrooms were off when he wandered outside to the porch, sitting on the couch and taking in the silence. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to stay awake forever, but he could postpone it at least.
After a while Eliot frowned – something had changed in the air – and he quickly looked to his right to find his eldest daughter on the porch, who seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
“Has Parker been teaching you that?” he asked with a high voice.
Emma had a face like thunder – and it reminded him of actual Parker who had wanted to taser him after he had made Vera sad. Somewhere deep down he knew he was about to get a telling off.
“You all right, dragon?”
“You left us,” she bit. “Allie was besides herself. Mom was a ghost at some point – it was terrifying.” His heart broke at seeing his little girl act like an adult. She had her arms crossed and her jaw clenched as she said. “I know you have a duty to your job, but you also have a duty to them.”
“And to you,” Eliot said softly, gesturing to the couch to invite her to sit which she refused, though she stepped a bit closer so he took it as a win. “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing he could not say it enough. “I never meant to hurt you, your sister and your mom like this.”
“You did though,” she snipped.
“I’m not denying that,” he agreed, letting the silence settle a bit as he saw the armor she had put on crumble a bit. “C’mon.” He patted the couch and she dramatically collapsed next to him. Teenagers, he huffed in his head. “You know your mom would be upset to learn you’ve been trying to carry some of this baggage.”
With a scoff Emma rested against him, shoulder to shoulder – dang she was going to grow taller then all of them. “I’ve never seen mom like that,” she said. “she was like frozen into place the first week. She used to just always be so strong. She got better when you woke but—”
“Hey,” he murmured. “Your mom is still strong – even if she didn’t show it. She’s human.”
“You never show pain,” she countered.
“Way to call out my flaws there, dragon,” Eliot said with a chuckle, bumping her shoulder. “C’mere.” And she deflated into the hug he offered. “I missed you. I love you.” The words made her breathing hitch. “Feel what you need to feel.”
“I—” sob. “missed you—” sob. “too, daddy.”
He closed his eyes, savoring that she was still his little girl even though she had insisted on calling him ‘dad’ since she turned twelve and now apparently had her first kiss.
“How about we go catch some sleep and we have a very good long talk why you felt the need to carry the burden tomorrow morning, okay?” he murmured and could feel her nod. Emma pulled back, yawning.
“You guys read wayyy too many parenting books,” she scoffed as they walked into the farm.
“Blame your mom, she edits them for a living.”
Eliot spooned Vera from behind in their bed and noted she had changed the sheets to fresh ones.
“Hmm?” she hummed, and his arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he breathed, moving her hair out of her neck and resting his face against it. “Emma gave me a well deserved piece of her mind.”
“Oof,” Vera said with a frown. “You’re lucky you’re still standing.”
He began to press kisses in her neck, his hand finding its way underneath her pajama top just to be able be skin to skin.
“She told me you froze,” he murmured. “You haven’t done that since San Lorenzo.”
When he and Vera had met, she had an interesting way of showing fear. To anyone seeing her, they would think she was calm and collected – devoid of emotions. But Eliot knew it was in those moments that she was truly terrified. She had told him it had started when the stalker Hollindare had tried to drug and kill her when she was nineteen – but that the forced empfinium therapy she had been exposed to in San Lorenzo had broken it.
Emma telling him that she showed such fear after he had gotten stuck under the tunnel worried him.
She took a deep breath in and turned around in his arms.
“I, um – I just—” she tried, sounding slightly panicked, and he shushed her soothingly.
“You don’t have to explain,” he assured. “I just want to check if we need to do anything about it – therapy or otherwise—”
Sighing, she cuddled closer – her head on his arm and a leg between his. “I think we’ll all need counseling after this ordeal, but—” She kissed him. “I was already so tired, and I just can never get rid of the fear of losing you, and losing what we have built.”
“I know,” he murmured and nudged their noses together. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
A beat.
“In three—” he counted down.
“Two—”
“One.”
The door of their bedroom creaked open, and two pairs of feet pattered across the floor before the bed dipped on either of their sides. Both Eliot and Vera turned onto their backs and held out their arms for their daughters to snuggle against them – Emma on Vera’s side and Alice on Eliot’s.
“Can we put the pictures back up tomorrow?” Alice loudly whispered.
“Of course, princess,” Eliot said.
“Can I dye my hair tomorrow?” Emma tried.
“Sure,” he grunted. “Get a piercing whilst you’re at it.”
“Really?!”
“Only if you let Parker do it,” Vera piped up. “For both the hair dye and piercing.”
“I’m sure she’ll give you a tattoo as well,” Eliot said. “Using a lock pick set.”
“You guys are no fun,” she sighed.
Eliot smiled into the darkness, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in. How he had missed this.
Together they all fell asleep, and when Eliot woke then ext morning – his memories were still intact.
As predicted, Eliot’s return was lavishly celebrated at headquarters – but not before Eliot had passed a Leverage trivia quiz to prove he got his memories back.
“Are you kidding me?” he had complained, being forced to sit down on a chair in the middle of the bar and Hardison taking on the role of game host. “We have done hundreds of jobs – how am I supposed to remember—”
“For each incorrect answer, Parker gets to taser you,” Hardison said with a shrug, and Vera made a protesting sound.
“Thank you, hon,” Eliot said.
“Not in front of the kids,” Vera continued, blowing him a kiss when he growled.
“Okay, starting off – what was the name of the nun our dear friend Hurley got caught up with in Mexico?”
“Dammit, Hardison—” Eliot was turning red, avoiding Vera’s eye, and then he heard Parker click her taser so he muttered, “Sister Lupe.”
“That is correct!”
The whole room cheered, and more people from several crews arrived to celebrate his recovery.
“Next question – what was the name of the nurse that you hired after getting your ass kicked at a carnival?”
“Dammit, Hardison!”
After ten or so questions, Eliot was officially declared back – though slightly hot under the collar as he joined his wife at the bar. Vera could only chuckle. “At least I now know why they all exchanged funny glances when I suggested to go in as your nurse.”
He groaned. “Where are the girls?”
“Bree’s showing off their new invention,” Vera said, eyeing upstairs where he spotted Bree surrounded by a gaggle of kids from several Leverage members. Just as he accepted a drink, his gaze rested on Parker, who had still kept her distance even though he had his memories back.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmured and walked up to her, nudging his head to make her follow him to the courtyard. Parker had her hands in her pockets, looking at the floor as they found a quiet spot and leaned against the fountain.
“Lucky you I didn’t need to use the taser, huh?” she said, trying to be lighthearted, but Eliot just looked at her softly.
“Parker—”
“And Vera’s plan worked! I told you all you had to do was woo your wife!”
“Parker.”
They weren’t huggers; they were made of the same stoic tree that got the job done. So Eliot just put his arm around her neck, pulling her slightly closer so he could quietly tell her, “I liked you, even during our first jobs.”
She scoffed. “You thought I was crazy.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Just the way I like you.”
A watery smile appeared on her face. “I was really scared,” she confessed. “I can’t do this without you.”
“It’s never going to happen,” he assured. “And I know you were the one who called Vera after it happened. For that I cannot express my gratitude in any way.”
Sniffing, Parker said. “I like the new Euro bills if you want inspiration.”
They both laughed. “I might have a way to get you some,” Eliot said, and dragged her back to the party.
All in all, the party reminded Eliot a lot of his wedding. They had a big dinner all together and he had been hugged – a lot. Again when he was about to have a drink, Vera touched his shoulder.
“Babe?” she said softly, and nudged her head to someone behind her. Zachery had been making himself as small as possible. The last time Eliot remembered seeing him was when Zachery had underestimated the cargo he was carrying out of the tunnel and would have gotten stuck otherwise. Instead Eliot had taken his place.
The room audibly became quieter, and Eliot put down his beer.
“Come here, man,” he said and forced the young man into a hug. “So glad you’re all right.”
“I’m so sorry, Mr Spencer,” he said. Eliot had scouted Zachery in one of his training classes, and he never really managed to get him to call him ‘Eliot’ instead of ‘Mr Spencer’. “So sorry.”
“Hey, hey,” Eliot soothed and pulled back. “What do I always teach?”
Zachery let out a sob. “Mistakes are learning opportunities, unless you die – then it’s just a mistake.”
“And did you die?”
He shook his head.
“So it’s a learning opportunity.” Eliot clapped him on the shoulder and picked up his beer again, taking a sip. “And you’re back doing agile training with Parker.”
Groaning, Zachery accepted his own beer and they clinked their bottles.
“Can I interrupt?” Sophie asked, and Eliot opened his arms, letting her hold him tightly.
“You do realize you’re now benched for the rest of the summer, right?” she murmured into his ear. She expected him to fight it, but after he pulled back he didn’t seem too bothered.
“Not gonna lie,” he said. “I could really use a vacation.” His eyes darted around the room, trying to find Vera. “I think we all do, as a family.”
Sophie pursed her lips. “Anywhere in mind in particular?”
“Europe,” he said. “Somewhere nice, sunny – culture will do the girls good. I was thinking maybe the French Riviera.” That way he could try and find this Adrien to give him a good scare for being his wife’s first kiss.
Nodding, she seemed to be considering his pondering – suspiciously so.
“I have a villa in the South of France, a nice little holiday home,” she said nonchalantly. “I was going to take Astrid and Tyler, but I guess there’s plenty of space…”
Eliot eyed her dangerously, knowing exactly what she was doing and indeed soon enough Parker was at his side again, saying, “I had been wanting to break into the Comtesse de Laurent’s place again.”
“I was thinking just a small family holiday,” Eliot spluttered.
“You’re not counting us as family?” Hardison said, pretending to be hurt. “All while you mention my name post coitus?”
“Dammit, Vera!” he cursed, searching the room for his wife, who seemed to have disappeared. “I need to discuss it with her first—”
“Oh don’t worry, Vera’s in on it – we’re leaving on Tuesday,” Sophie said, patting his shoulder.
“W-what?”
“This has been a long con,” Sophie explained like it was obvious. “Even from before the tunnel – why do you think you came up with the French Riviera? Vera’s been planting seeds.” At seeing Eliot bristle and mutter ‘Grifters’, Sophie said. “You need to bloody take those girls on a holiday. I’m just glad you managed to get your memory back before the deadline. Would have been dreary canceling our trip to go to Boston instead.”
Eliot quietly stewed, suddenly remembering all the travel journals Vera had been leaving around the farm before the incident and the final nail in the coffin had been last night with story about her first kiss. And Parker! Her mention of the Euro bills. Dammit. Then again, after the whole ordeal of the last two months – he guessed he really did owe his girls a vacation, and he owed the rest of his family a thank you.
“The whole family is coming?” Eliot finally asked.
“There’s a pool,” Sophie added, trying to entice him even though he had already agreed to it all in his head. “There’s a holiday park nearby as well, so there will be plenty of friends to make for Emma, Alice and Tyler.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving her off and looking for Vera again. “I demand a weekly date night with my wife so y’all will be babysitting then.”
“Naturally,” Sophie agreed.
He stormed off, finally finding all three of his girls playing cards in a quieter area.
“How do you keep winning, mommy?” he heard Alice ask.
“You have a terrible poker face,” Vera said, smiling. “Gotta hide your secrets, princess.”
“Like your mother,” Eliot grunted. “Because I guess we’re going to France.”
He was met with mixed reactions – Emma sighing and groaning. “I’ll go cancel my summer plans – again.” She got up, walking off and muttering, “Don’t want to go to stupid France.”
Alice had the opposite reaction. “Do I have enough time to learn French?” she cried, running off as well to look for Parker. Vera stayed behind, shuffling the cards and giving him a soft secret smile.
“France?” he grunted, taking Emma’s empty spot and checking her cards – she would have won that round had they continued.
“I figured Greece wasn’t really on the table,” she said with a wink. “Just to remind you, you still have free will. You can change your mind.”
He huffed. “Why plant seeds? Why not just ask?”
“Like I had all the previous years?” she said, looking at him incredulously. She shuffled him and herself a pair of cards. “There was either a job, or the girls were too young – so many excuses. So I ran a very teeny tiny con on you.” With a shrug, she revealed her hand and Eliot did the same – leaving her with the win.
“You been cheating?” he said, nodding at Emma’s winning cards.
“She needs a confidence boost.” Vera gathered the cards to clean up, avoiding his gaze.
“Hon,” he said, pleading her with his eyes and she looked at him with thin lips.
“I’m sorry,” she said and the tiredness in her eyes made any betrail he had felt evaporate from his body. “It was supposed to be in good fun but—”
“I got hit by a tunnel?”
She deflated. “I just want a holiday with you and the girls, I can’t help it the family is kind of a package deal here.”
Sighing, he got up and offered his hand to her, pulling her into a hug. “Well, I did marry an incredibly smart, brave and strong woman,” he said and gave her a kiss. “I guess I would owe here a vacation in the French Riviera.”
Finally she smiled again, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Good,” she said, giving him another kiss. “Because Adrien has a restaurant nearby—”
“What?”
“And he invited me for a tasting menu—”
“Your first kiss?!”
“I left quite the impression, I guess I am a good kiss—” He swallowed her next words with a kiss, both of them containing their giggles.
“Wait—” Eliot pulled back. “You kissed a chef before me?”
“I have a type!” Vera laughed, dragging him to the main bar so they could gather their daughters to head back home. Eliot was grinning ear to ear, knowing it would be a summer to remember.
Because what on earth could happen going to the South of France with a family of criminals?
Nothing weird.
Surely.
Notes:
Leaving comments and kudos after enjoying a story? Very considerate - very demure!
Thanks for hanging around, guys! Hope it was a story to remember ;)
LimeFlamingo on Chapter 2 Tue 30 Jul 2024 08:37PM UTC
Last Edited Tue 30 Jul 2024 08:40PM UTC
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DenimAndLace1103 on Chapter 6 Tue 13 Aug 2024 01:46AM UTC
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