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Sometimes, at night, Eliot Spencer allowed his mind to go there.
Sometimes - when the night was cold and dark around him and sleep eluded him once again, when he was alone with himself and the memories wouldn’t leave him alone. It was the nights when the guilt – the guilt he always felt – was stronger than normal, when the faces and voices of the innocents whose blood was on his hands wouldn’t go away and he needed a harder punishment than normal. That was the nights when he allowed his thoughts to return to this memory.
It was years now, but he still could recall the moment in painfully clear details. His heightened senses had picked up every Detail with agonizing accuracy and his well-trained mind made sure he would never forget any of it.
The exact moment when the last glimmer of hope had died inside of him. The last glimmer of hope, that somehow, maybe just maybe he could be redeemed.
It was before he got up from the greasy floor of the warehouse, before he looked at the carnage, he had caused, the bodies of Damien Moreau’s henchnmen on the floor. It was even before he fired even the first shot. It was the second when he picked up that gun, the instant his fingers felt the familiar sensation of the grip in his hand.
He knew it then, that there would be no going back anymore, that it was too late for him. This deed had sealed his fate, had cemented it forever: This was who he was and nothing - no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried - would ever be able to change that.
A killer.
That was all he was, all he would ever be. There would never be redemption for him, never an absolution from the things he had done.
Before there had been moments when he’d sometimes still have hope. Hope that maybe there could be a different life for him somewhere out there.
Not a family, he had never dared dream of that. Not anymore. Not in a very long time. As tempting as it might have been, as hot as the wish for it secretly burned deep inside of him. He knew that he didn’t deserve that.
But maybe something like Parker and Hardison had. Someone he belonged with, someone to share his life with, someone who knew and understood him and accepted him for who he was, past and all.
But it was that moment in the warehouse when he knew that he didn’t deserve that either. Never would. How could someone ever accept him – love him - if he could barely tolerate himself.
And that was part of the punishment as well.