Part 2 Drake's Fortune
Victor Sullivan
Nate didn't come back to their room that night.
Or the next one.
Or the one after that.
Sully hardly saw Nate and Elena over the course of the two weeks they stayed in Panama. The two of them were lost in their own little world, developing familiarity and habits unique to them. When he watched them together, he saw Nate's arm curl around her waist and how her hand lingered on his chest, head thrown back in laughter from whatever witty comment he made. They were like two lovestruck teenagers, hardly spending any time apart. Sully saw them on occasion through their stay, particularly when they all met up for dinner or spent long hours lazing on the beach.
Sully didn't mind it all so much. In fact, he let Nate and Elena have their space, and couldn't help but marvel at the effect the reporter had on the kid. He was calmer, a certain ease about him Sully hadn't seen in a long, long time. His usual frenetic need to hunt down the latest job seemed to have stalled for the time being, and he was perfectly content to simply sit in her company.
He was different with her, and Sully's suspicions of having her around only being a good thing turned out to be true. Sully had never seen anything like it before, certainly not with Nate's previous – and all too short-lived – relationship attempts.
That wasn't to say it was all smooth sailing. Nate and Elena were both incredibly stubborn individuals. They were constantly testing each other, finding out what the other's limits were, and yet neither of them were ever willing to back down. She was good for him, Sully thought. He finally found someone who was impervious to his charms and was completely unfazed by his smartass remarks. She didn't hesitate to knock him down a peg or two, and Sully was relieved for it. It was time for someone else to keep him in check for once; he had plenty of years under his belt keeping his kid in line.
Elena was persistent, too. She kept asking questions, not once failing to seek out answers. He couldn't exactly blame her for wanting to know more about the two rag-tag men she threw her lot in with; the only problem was that she was drifting ever closer to sensitive territory. He wondered how long it would take before she asked one too many questioned.
Even Sully couldn't evade her impromptu interrogations and, maybe, it was only a matter of time before she cornered him.
Which was exactly what she did.
Sully was lounging at the beach side bar with his cigar when Elena slid in the chair across from him. Nate was off at the front desk, bartering for a few more nights of extended stay. He eyed her from the corner of his eye.
"So..." She drew out the word and Sully raised a brow. "This is what you two do, huh? Sit around on the beachside all day?"
Sully huffed air out his nose in a silent laugh. "It's hard livin', what can I say?"
Elena hummed in agreement. "Kinda like journalism," She mused. "All the traveling, research, tracking down clues to the next story..." Sully nodded somewhat reluctantly, not quite sure what he was agreeing to or what she was getting at. She twirled the little plastic umbrella in her drink as she peered shrewdly up at him. "There's projects I've been working on for years. After a while you can get a little... obsessive."
Sully didn't say anything, but he did find himself smiling approvingly. She already had the kid all figured out.
"Nate told me he's been researching Drake since he was a kid, following in his mother's footsteps. He said that was how you two met, when he stole the ring."
Sully turned to her in astonishment. Nate told her all that? He hadn't expected his partner to open up about his mother, or the less than respectable way in which he obtained his 'heirloom.' He was firmly reticent about that part of his life at the best of times, even around Sully.
Still, he didn't miss the lack of any mention of Sam, and it burned a hole into the back of Sully's mind. Of course Nate hadn't opened up about that, but it didn't hurt any less that his brother's memory was still locked deeply away. He didn't think it was entirely fair to erase his existence so effectively. Sam deserved to be remembered, flaws and all.
Elena fell quiet when he continued to say nothing, and Sully wondered if she thought maybe she had crossed a line. I'm not gonna be the one to spill the kid's secrets.
She shook off the uncomfortable lapse. "When we found Drake's body," she spoke up again, "he tried to leave it behind. The ring. I... kinda held onto it for him."
Sully started at that. He had no idea. Nate had never said a word about it. Hell, the damned thing was still there, so he never would have thought he'd taken it off to begin with. The ring was practically attached to him, and the only time Sully ever remembered him removing it was when he went to the Panamanian prison with Sam, and Sully watched over it for him.
"That's when I knew you guys weren't just a couple of conmen." He remembered her cornering him, trying to gauge what sort of men she had chased after. "You guys dropped everything to stop Roman and Navarro."
After a moment of her watching him, Sully realized she wanted him to answer some implied question. He pondered his words carefully, then said, "If there's one thing Nate's taught me, it's that there's things that're more important than treasure."
A smile broke across her face, and something told him he'd passed her test.
"So how is it you wound up doing all this?" Elena asked. "I get how Nate fits into the story, but what about you?"
Sully eased back with the change of direction. He wasn't comfortable talking about Nate's life when he knew the kid held onto his secrets tightly. But talking about himself? He knew what kind of information he was willing to part with.
"Oh, I served some time in the Navy years back. Spent about two years out at sea, if I'm rememberin' correctly."
"Ah..." Elena drew the sound out as she watched him closely. "So, you were a military man. How does someone like that wind up digging up old tombs?"
Sully shrugged. "Got into some trouble with my superiors. I shaved off the bottom of our stocks and sold it off on the black market."
Elena quirked a brow. "Any punishment come along for something like that?"
Smoke billowed out of Sully's nose. "Dishonorably discharged, I'm afraid. But I never looked back. It was kinda... like a calling." He huffed a laugh, letting his eyes roam over to the boy still haggling for a few more nights. "Like I said, it was kinda like destiny. I met Nate, and here we are." He spread his arms out, giving a general gesture at the beachside bar and the coastline. "El Dorado's at the bottom of the ocean and we got some gold to show for it." Sully leaned back and twisted his cigar between his fingers, a small smile playing on his lips. "I haven't decided if meeting that kid is the best or worst thing to happen to me yet."
Elena turned her eyes on Nate when he started walking back to them, watching him with sharp eyes. "Guess we'll have to wait and see, huh?"
~ ~ ~
At the end of the two weeks, they flew back to the States. Nate and Sully had to scrounge up some of their forged passports, curtesy of a guy Sully knew. They didn't usually worry too much, but with the Hog Wild destroyed, they were forced to slip under authorities' radar. If Elena noticed, she never commented.
Sully suspected she had a lot more on her mind than her traveling companions' paperwork. After their short time in paradise, her producer demanded that she return to Miami for damage control. From the sound of it, he was none too pleased she lost the camera. Or destroyed the boat.
Nate had not-so-subtly suggested going back to Tampa, to "get back to home base and figure out what to do next," as he so eloquently put it. Sully knew he was trying to stretch out the time he had left with the reporter before they all had to go back to the real world.
Sully didn't mind, and he was more than happy to tag along. He liked her, enjoyed having her company, and he could see Nate and Elena were good for each other. A part of him hoped Nate would actually attempt something more permanent than with previous girlfriends; meaning he didn't try to screw up another budding relationship.
Besides, Sully believed it might do all of them some good. With Drake's demise now resolved, a lifetime of questions were now answered. Maybe Nate's drive for big, elusive treasures would finally abate. Sully wouldn't mind slowing down for awhile...
After they landed in Orlando's airport and they had grabbed their luggage from baggage claim, they exited the terminal. Sully hung back to give Nate and Elena a moment alone together. They walked side by side, almost touching, but not quite closing the gap, and they stopped at the sidewalk.
"So..." She said.
"So," Nate echoed.
"I guess this is it."
"Yea," Nate nodded, and they weren't quite looking at each other.
God, they're like a pair of shy teenagers.
"That's my coworker over there." The reporter pointed out a blue sedan on the other end of the curb, and Nate nodded again. Elena shifted her grip on her bag and then seemed to force herself to look up at him. "I've been wanting to ask... We're going to see each other again, right?"
Nate's head jerked up and he gaped down at her. "What?" He laughed nervously. "'Course we are!" He squeezed an arm around her shoulders. "You can't get rid of me that easy."
Except, Sully knew that was a lie, and he even saw a flicker of doubt cross her features. He never could lie to save his life.
"Good," She said anyway, leaning into his side for a few moments, then she started to back away. "Because you still owe me the next big scoop, cowboy." Elena pitched to the side and sent a wave in Sully's direction. "See you around, Sully!"
Sully shot her a bright smile, and he watched her climb into the van. Just like that, it was just the two of them again. The kid lingered, eyes trained on the vehicle growing ever more distant, and Sully nudged him.
"C'mon. Let's get to Tampa before it gets too dark."
~ ~ ~
For the foreseeable future, they were stuck in the States for some time. Not having his seaplane was a hinderance, but they found ways around that obstacle. Jobs were scarce, but not impossible to find in the United States. Nate and Sully agreed that staying low for the next month or so was in their best interest, anyway, although Sully wondered if Nate only agreed because he had a deeper ulterior motive. Leaving the U.S. meant they wouldn't be able to return for a good while, and who was the incentive for them to stay other than Elena Fisher? When Sully brought up the point to Nate, he scoffed in his face.
"She's already on my ass about the next big haul. I don't have any clue what she thinks she'll get out of it." Nate tapped his pencil on the table in the rental. "I figure she can't complain if we stick to small stuff."
Sully found himself amused by his grumbling. Nate had a lot of respect for Miss Fisher, but he couldn't seem to grasp her obsession with her documentary show. They're more alike than they realize. They were both equally dedicated to their worlds, and Nate was completely uninterested in melding the two of them together.
When they didn't have a contract lined up, Nate would up and vanish at the crack of dawn and drive four hours to go see Elena in Miami for days at a time. According to the kid, she was constantly working away at the next big break. He never went into details, beyond admitting they tried to figure out when they could spend their limited time together without their work getting in the way.
One day, Nate suddenly asked, "Can Elena stay here for a few days?"
Sully stopped in the middle of preparing dinner to look at the kid. He was sitting at the table and sketching idly in his journal. "Mind if I ask why?"
Nate barely glanced up at him. "Elena's meeting some curator in the area, and I guess there's an event at the museum. I was gonna offer her to stay with us. It won't be for another couple of weeks."
Sully turned back to his dinner preparations. "I don't see why not," he replied, "so long as we don't have any unexpected guests over." Nate was smart, and he was usually careful, but Sully thought it needed saying, nonetheless.
The only problem was, a lot could happen in just two weeks, and Nate stuck true to his nature of being unable to hold down anything long-term.
In his defense, Elena started it.
Sully hadn't seen the cracks forming in person, but he could have predicted it from a mile away. And he had.
Try as they might, Elena and Nate were worlds apart. From what Sully could gather after Nate's last trip up to see her, coming back far more agitated than usual, Elena was hard at work, much to his annoyance, but Nate wouldn't open up about the deeper issue of his early return home. All he would tell Sully was that he was irritated she was completely sucked into her research for her next story, and he felt she had ignored him the entire time he was in Miami.
"I'm putting aside my life so I can go see her!" He groused.
"Last you told me we were takin' it easy so you could keep her off our backs," Sully pointed out as calmly as he could.
Nate opened and closed his mouth. "I- yea. That's part of it. But-" His shoulders slumped in defeat. "I don't get it, Sully. We were good, but she won't stop bugging me about new leads we've found." He made a noise of indignation as he threw his hands up in the air. "She doesn't get why we're just doin' small lifts. Says I could do better." A wounded look flickered across his face and he picked at the pencil shavings. "But oh, if we go after something bigger, we'd better make something meaningful out of it. She's infuriating."
Sully had no advice to give him. His own love live was rather bleak beyond one-night stands. He was content with that aspect of his life, staying free to do as he pleased, but that didn't mean he wanted that kind of lifestyle for the kid. He wanted this to work out between the pair of them.
The tension between the kid and the girl was palpable when Elena arrived in Tampa. She had taken the bus to save on gas, so Nate had gone to pick her up from the bus stop. They were perfectly pleasant around each other, but neither Nate nor Elena would quite make that physical contact. Ignoring the awkwardness, Sully greeted her at the door with a hug.
"How are you, sweetheart?"
Elena let out a tired laugh as she returned the gesture. "Exhausted. My boss has me doing a lot of grunt work on top of this new story I'm working on."
Sully took her bags from her, ushering her inside, and Nate closed the front door behind them. "Oh? What's this one about?"
She winked at him. "You'll have to wait for the episode to air along with everyone else." She scanned her eyes around the living room, wandering further into the house, and he could have laughed at the confused look on her face. What, did she think she would find anything incriminating? Besides a safe with firearms, he'd kept everything else on his seaplane. Distracted, she said to him, "Thanks for letting me stay with you. Hotels this time a year are ridiculously expensive. Saves the company some money."
"Don't worry about it, darlin'. Make yourself at home," Sully told her. He shared a glance with Nate, who just shrugged, and Sully shook his head, leaving them to it. They had to work out their differences eventually.
Later, when Sully came back out of the restroom after a quick shower, Elena sat at the table with a laptop, typing furiously away, and Nate was perched on the couch with his journal. He kept glancing over at her, brow furrowed in concentration. Sully tried to give them space, but it was hard with all of them cramped in a small house together. For years, it had just been Nate and Sully living in the rental, ever since the Panama job.
At some point, Nate ripped out a page of his sketchbook and got up to lay the piece of paper on the table next to Elena's computer. Even after he retreated back to the couch, she didn't move right away. Just when Sully was starting to think she might have forgotten it was there, she picked it up, and a gentle smile crossed her lips.
Sighing, she closed the computer and joined the kid on the couch. "I didn't know you could draw," She said to him.
Nate looked up from the journal in his lap. "It helps with the kind of work we do," He replied.
"Huh." Elena's eyes lingered on the drawing, and then she leaned into his side and Nate put an arm around her. "Thanks."
After that, they could all breathe easier again. Nate didn't walk on eggshells around Elena, and she seemed to try to make it up to him by trying to involve the kid in her work, but Nate wouldn't have it. She gave up a little too quickly for Sully's liking.
For most of the days, Elena was off dealing with the business side of her trip; she only had a few short amount of time she was spending in Tampa, anyway, so of course there was a lot for her to get done. Before he knew it, it was the last day of her stay. Nate had taken over making dinner, more than likely as a way to distract himself, but that didn't stop her from trying to engage him in her world again.
"I was thinking..." Elena was saying while they served themselves up. "About Navarro."
Nate shot her a look. "Elena-"
She shushed him. "He had this whole scheme for power and wealth, right?" She shuddered, closing her eyes for a moment. She might have taken the whole adventure with El Dorado in stride, but Sully would be a fool to believe she hadn't been affected by the events that transpired on that island. "He was going to use that thing as leverage. He could've caused a whole pandemic... If he'd sold it off..." Nate had stopped to watch her carefully. "I was thinking next time-"
"Oh, no, no, no," Nate bit out. "There's no next time."
"I lost my camera!" She countered. "If I still had it-"
"You'd be at the bottom of a ravine if you did," Nate shot back. "Elena, we've been over this."
Sully kept his head down as the two of them duked it out in the middle of his rental. He knew Elena had been pushing Nate, and for the last two months he had done everything in his power to keep her from tagging along. Something told him it was all coming to a head; something had to give.
"Yea, but now I'm proposing a new angle. I've thought about this a lot." Her eyebrows creased together in thought. "What if there's other people out there like Navarro that want artifacts for power, or a political bargaining chip..." She trailed off and Nate rolled his eyes.
"Yea, we try to avoid those kinds of people," He muttered.
"But we could expose them, start up investigations-"
"We?" Nate said incredulously.
Elena steamrolled passed his objection. "My producer would go crazy for the idea." She looked up at him with barely contained enthusiasm. "We saved the world, Nate. Who knows what else is out there? I can handle the journalism side of things, and you and Sully can do all the research."
Sully gaped at her. She had it all figured out, but he was mostly too shocked to consider what her proposal might mean. Nate, on the other hand, was shaking his head forcefully. "No, no, it's too dangerous, 'Lena."
She poked his chest, causing him to step back. "That didn't stop you from involving me before."
"That was different!" Nate sighed in exasperation.
"So, what, you were just using me?" She questioned.
Nate sputtered in the face of her fierce intensity. "I- yea, pretty much."
If Elena was offended, she didn't let them see it. She was on a roll, and nothing Nate could say was going to stop her. "You owe me," she reminded him for what seemed like the tenth time of Sully hearing that exact phrase, "you know how this business works. We could get the jump on the next asshole trying to take over the world-"
"So now you're using me?" Nate cut in dubiously.
Elena bristled and Sully braced himself for a real shit storm, but then she softened. "Nate," she tried, "you could do something good. We stopped Navarro."
"I'm not some goddamn hero, Elena!" Nate burst out, leaning in ever closer, and yet she didn't falter.
"What are you, then?" She crossed her arms, looking up at him, searching for something. "You're okay with just being a thief? Nate, there's more-"
But Nate recoiled back and raised his hands to stop her. "So what if I am?"
They stared each other down, and Sully winced from the intensity in their eyes. He stepped forward, not really even sure who he sided with, but there was a lot riding on what Elena was saying. "If you don't mind me-"
"Sully," Elena began to say, but Nate shut her down.
"Yea, Sully, tell her why it's a stupid idea."
"You both make good points," Sully said as diplomatically as he could muster. "Elena's got a point," she shot Nate a victorious grin, "this game has gotten more dangerous lately. It's not about who's the best anymore, but who's got the money." They learned that the hard way with Rafe and then with Roman. They were lucky to get out of it all alive. "But... Nate's right. It's too dangerous. I'm sorry."
He was sorry, but he wanted to be selfish. He had gotten too close to losing the kid, and the last thing he wanted to do was put him in the path of another madman. He might agree with Elena's view of the world, but the risks were too high to take that leap of faith.
Elena frowned at them, disappointment clouding her face. "Fine," she muttered, "I'll do it myself."
"Elena." Nate reached out for her, but she turned her back on him, effectively putting an end to the conversation.
They ate dinner in awkward silence and afterwards Elena turned in early. Nate, who had been sharing his room with her, camped on the couch for the night, and Sully resigned himself to picking up the pieces when Nate inevitably fell apart.
They're too damn stubborn for their own good.
* * * * *
This is actually, personally, on my list of top 3 favorite chapters, along with the next one. Idk what's actually my favorite, but this one was just so much fun to write.
This was my thought process with the last scene in the chapter: Nate is fiercely loyal, and we can all tell he loves deeply. Sure, he has commitment issues (not in a cheating sort of way, but he doesn't really know how to hold onto things all that well), but the way he gets so excited to see Elena again later down the road... I wanted to make them come to a crossroads mutually. I can't believe his commitment issues are the only reason they ultimately split apart. And, also, I wanted a more concrete reason for why they didn't stay together after the first game. So, this is what I came up with.
What I mean by this being mutual, is that I didn't want Nate to be the sole reason for them clashing and falling apart subsequently after. In this chapter, Elena's the one that instigates the downfall, and in the next chapter y'all will see how Nate plays a hand in it...
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!
~ Sic Parvis Magna